Open AccessRadially truncated galactic discs
Author(s) -
De Grijs Richard,
Kregel Michiel,
Wesson Karen H.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.04380.x
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , disc , spiral galaxy , galaxy , astronomy , disc galaxy , exponential function , spiral (railway) , elliptical galaxy , mathematical analysis , mathematics
We present the first results of a systematic analysis of radially truncated exponential discs for four galaxies of a complete sample of disc‐dominated edge‐on spiral galaxies. The discs of our sample galaxies are truncated at similar radii on either side of their centres. With the possible exception of the disc of ESO 416‐G25, it appears that the truncations in our sample galaxies are closely symmetric, in terms of both their sharpness and the truncation length. However, the truncations occur over a larger region and not as abruptly as found in previous studies. We show that the truncated luminosity distributions of our sample galaxies, if also present in the mass distributions, comfortably meet the requirements for longevity. The formation and maintenance of disc truncations are probably closely related to stability requirements for galactic discs.