Gas Mass Fractions and the Evolution of Spiral Galaxies

Abstract

We show that the gas mass fraction of spiral galaxies is strongly correlated with luminosity and surface brightness. It is not correlated with linear size. Gas fraction varies with luminosity and surface brightness at the same rate, indicating evolution at fixed size. Dim galaxies are clearly less evolved than bright ones, having consumed only $\sim 1/2$ of their gas. This resolves the gas consumption paradox, since there exist many galaxies with large gas reservoirs. These gas rich galaxies must have formed the bulk of their stellar populations in the last half of a Hubble time. The existence of such immature galaxies at $z = 0$ indicates that either galaxy formation is a lengthy or even ongoing process, or the onset of significant star formation can be delayed for arbitrary periods in tenuous gas disks.