Giant Low-Surface Brightness Galaxies in the Global Picture of Galaxy Formation and Evolution
Abstract
Giant low-surface brightness galaxies (gLSBGs) challenge standard merger-driven galaxy assembly models due to their large, dynamically cold disks, with radii often larger than 100~kpc and dynamical masses exceeding ∼1012~\Ms. We identify $60$ gLSBGs, including a volume-complete subsample of $35$ galaxies out to z=0.1 in the 120~sq.deg. area. Using new and archival photometric and spectroscopic data, we homogeneously analyze their structural properties and derive central velocity dispersions. We update the gLSBG volume density estimate in the local Universe to (3.6 ± 0.6) · 10−5 Mpc−3. This number corresponds to about 1 in 4000 galaxies in the g-band luminosity range 0.14−1.37 · 1011 L⊙ out to z=0.1, which is consistent with EAGLE cosmological simulations but 3.8 times lower than the corresponding value in TNG100. Central surface brightness and scalelength of the gLSB disks scale with the luminosity of the central component, becoming fainter and flatter as the central component grows more luminous, suggesting rapid disk formation rather than the inside-out growth typical of high surface brightness late-type galaxies. Many gLSBGs also show extended UV counterparts in GALEX, strengthening their connection to XUV-disk galaxies. Finally, comparison with superluminous spirals shows that even complete gas-to-star conversion cannot transform a typical gLSBG into a superspiral, owing to their lower total baryonic mass.
Related
- Star Formation in the Low Surface Brightness Galaxies: a Comparison with the Outer Regions of Normal Galaxies
- Inside-out growth and the kiloparsec-scale star formation main sequence for low-surface-brightness disk galaxies in MaNGA
- The connection between surface brightness and satellite systems for central galaxies through IllustrisTNG (Corrigendum)
- Multiband Structural Analysis of KiDS-selected Low Surface Brightness Galaxies with Hyper Suprime-Cam Imaging
- The Stellar Populations of Two Quiescent Low Surface Brightness Dwarf Galaxies in Low Density Environments
BibTeX
@misc{kolganov2026giant,
title = {{Giant Low-Surface Brightness Galaxies in the Global Picture of Galaxy Formation and Evolution}},
author = {Fedor M. Kolganov and Igor V. Chilingarian and Anna S. Saburova and Damir Gasymov and Evgenii V. Rubtsov and Vladislav I. Klochkov and Kirill A. Grishin and Mariia Demianenko},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.25259},
eprint = {2609.25259},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25259},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Giant Low-Surface Brightness Galaxies in the Global Picture of Galaxy Formation and Evolution
AU - Fedor M. Kolganov
AU - Igor V. Chilingarian
AU - Anna S. Saburova
AU - Damir Gasymov
AU - Evgenii V. Rubtsov
AU - Vladislav I. Klochkov
AU - Kirill A. Grishin
AU - Mariia Demianenko
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.25259
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25259
AB - Giant low-surface brightness galaxies (gLSBGs) challenge standard merger-driven galaxy assembly models due to their large, dynamically cold disks, with radii often larger than 100~kpc and dynamical masses exceeding ∼10^12~\Ms. We identify $60$ gLSBGs, including a volume-complete subsample of $35$ galaxies out to z=0.1 in the 120~sq.deg. area. Using new and archival photometric and spectroscopic data, we homogeneously analyze their structural properties and derive central velocity dispersions. We update the gLSBG volume density estimate in the local Universe to (3.6 ± 0.6) · 10^−5 Mpc^−3. This number corresponds to about 1 in 4000 galaxies in the g-band luminosity range 0.14−1.37 · 10^11 L_⊙ out to z=0.1, which is consistent with EAGLE cosmological simulations but 3.8 times lower than the corresponding value in TNG100. Central surface brightness and scalelength of the gLSB disks scale with the luminosity of the central component, becoming fainter and flatter as the central component grows more luminous, suggesting rapid disk formation rather than the inside-out growth typical of high surface brightness late-type galaxies. Many gLSBGs also show extended UV counterparts in GALEX, strengthening their connection to XUV-disk galaxies. Finally, comparison with superluminous spirals shows that even complete gas-to-star conversion cannot transform a typical gLSBG into a superspiral, owing to their lower total baryonic mass.
ER -