Detection of Ultraviolet Halos around Highly Inclined Galaxies
Abstract
We report the discovery of diffuse ultraviolet light around late-type galaxies out to 5-20 kpc from the midplane using Swift and GALEX images. The emission is consistent with the stellar outskirts in the early-type galaxies but not in the late-type galaxies, where the emission is quite blue and consistent with a reflection nebula powered by light escaping from the galaxy and scattering off dust in the halo. Our results agree with expectations from halo dust discovered in extinction by Menard et al. (2010) to within a few kpc of the disk and imply a comparable amount of hot and cold gas in galaxy halos (a few x 108 Msun within 20 kpc) if the dust resides primarily in Mg II absorbers. The results also highlight the potential of UV photometry to study individual galaxy halos.
Turn this paper into a lesson
ArcXiv compiles a structured reading guide from this paper's metadata: plain-English importance, contributions, prerequisite concepts, which sections to read first, flashcards, and a quiz. Grounded in the abstract, never invented.