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Accepted manuscript

WALLABY pilot survey: properties of H I-selected dark sources and low surface brightness galaxies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2025

T. O’Beirne Open the ORCID record for T. O’Beirne [Opens in a new window] ,
L. Staveley-Smith Open the ORCID record for L. Staveley-Smith [Opens in a new window] ,
V. A. Kilborn ,
O. I. Wong Open the ORCID record for O. I. Wong [Opens in a new window] ,
T. Westmeier Open the ORCID record for T. Westmeier [Opens in a new window] ,
M. E. Cluver Open the ORCID record for M. E. Cluver [Opens in a new window] ,
K. Bekki ,
N. Deg Open the ORCID record for N. Deg [Opens in a new window] ,
H. Dénes Open the ORCID record for H. Dénes [Opens in a new window]  and
B.-Q. For
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T. O’Beirne*
Affiliation:
Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia CSIRO Space & Astronomy, PO Box 1130, Bentley WA 6102, Australia ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO-3D) International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
L. Staveley-Smith
Affiliation:
ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO-3D) International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
V. A. Kilborn
Affiliation:
Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO-3D)
O. I. Wong
Affiliation:
CSIRO Space & Astronomy, PO Box 1130, Bentley WA 6102, Australia ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO-3D) International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
T. Westmeier
Affiliation:
ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO-3D) International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
M. E. Cluver
Affiliation:
Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia
K. Bekki
Affiliation:
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
N. Deg
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy, Queen’s University, Kingston ON K7L 3N6, Canada
H. Dénes
Affiliation:
School of Physical Sciences and Nanotechnology, Yachay Tech University, Hacienda San José S/N, 100119, Urcuquí, Ecuador
B.-Q. For
Affiliation:
ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO-3D) International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
K. Lee-Waddell
Affiliation:
CSIRO Space & Astronomy, PO Box 1130, Bentley WA 6102, Australia International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102 Australia
C. Murugeshan
Affiliation:
CSIRO Space & Astronomy, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia
K. A. Oman
Affiliation:
Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Physics Department, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom.
J. Rhee
Affiliation:
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
A. X. Shen
Affiliation:
CSIRO Space & Astronomy, PO Box 1130, Bentley WA 6102, Australia
E. N. Taylor
Affiliation:
Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia
*
Author for correspondence: T. O’Beirne, Email: tamsynobeirne.astro@gmail.com.
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Abstract

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We examine the optical counterparts of the 1829 neutral hydrogen (H I) detections in three pilot fields in the Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind surveY (WALLABY) using data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Imaging Surveys DR10. We find that 17 per cent (315) of the detections are optically low surface brightness galaxies (LSBGs; mean g-band surface brightness within 1 Re of > 23 mag arcsec−2) and 3 per cent (55) are optically ‘dark’. We find that the gas-rich WALLABY LSBGs have low star formation efficiencies, and have stellar masses spanning five orders of magnitude, which highlights the diversity of properties across our sample. 75 per cent of the LSBGs and all of the dark H I sources had not been catalogued prior to WALLABY. We examine the optically dark sample of the WALLABY pilot survey to verify the fidelity of the catalogue and investigate the implications for the full survey for identifying dark H I sources. We assess the H I detections without optical counterparts and identify 38 which pass further reliability tests. Of these, we find that 13 show signatures of tidal interactions. The remaining 25 detections have no obvious tidal origin, so are candidates for isolated galaxies with high H I masses, but low stellar masses and star-formation rates. Deeper H I and optical follow-up observations are required to verify the true nature of these dark sources.

Keywords

galaxies: evolutiongalaxies: stellar contentradio lines: galaxies
Type
Research Article
Information
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia , Accepted manuscript , pp. 1 - 35
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Astronomical Society of Australia