NIBLES: an HI census of local SDSS galaxies

Abstract

NIBLES is a Key Project proposed for the 100m-class Nancay Radio Telescope (NRT) in France. Its aim is a census of the HI gas content and dynamics of 4,000 Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies in the Local Volume (900<cz<12,000 km/s). The galaxies were selected based on their total stellar mass (absolute z-band magnitude Mz), and are distributed evenly over the entire range of Mz covered by local SDSS galaxies (-10 to -24 mag, for H0=70 km/s/Mpc). A pilot survey is being made of over 600 galaxies. NIBLES will be complementary to the ALFALFA and EBHIS blind HI surveys, which will detect a different ensemble of local galaxies, and which our pilot survey results indicate will detect about 40-45% of the NIBLES sample. NIBLES is an open collaboration and anyone interested in the science and willing to contribute to the project is welcome to join the score of NIBLErS.