MHONGOOSE: A MeerKAT nearby galaxy H I survey

de Blok, W. J. G., Healy, J., Maccagni, F. M., Pisano, D. J., Bosma, A., English, J., Jarrett, T., Marasco, A., Meurer, G. R., Veronese, S., Bigiel, F., Chemin, L., Fraternali, F., Holwerda, B. W., Kamphuis, P., Klöckner, H. R., Kleiner, D., Leroy, A. K., Mogotsi, M., Oman, K. A., Schinnerer, E., Verdes-Montenegro, L., Westmeier, T., Wong, O. I., Zabel, N., Amram, P., Carignan, C., Combes, F., Brinks, E., Dettmar, R. J., Gibson, B. K., Jozsa, G. I. G., Koribalski, B. S., McGaugh, S. S., Oosterloo, T. A., Spekkens, K., Schröder, A. C., Adams, E. A. K., Athanassoula, E., Bershady, M. A., Beswick, R. J., Blyth, S., Elson, E. C., Frank, B. S., Heald, G., Henning, P. A., Kurapati, S., Loubser, S. I., Lucero, D., Meyer, M., Namumba, B., Oh, S.-H., Sardone, A., Sheth, K., Smith, M. W. L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3532-6970, Sorgho, A., Walter, F., Williams, T., Woudt, P. A. and Zijlstra, A. 2024. MHONGOOSE: A MeerKAT nearby galaxy H I survey. Astronomy & Astrophysics 688 , A109. 10.1051/0004-6361/202348297

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Abstract

The MHONGOOSE (MeerKAT H I Observations of Nearby Galactic Objects: Observing Southern Emitters) survey maps the distribution and kinematics of the neutral atomic hydrogen (H I) gas in and around 30 nearby star-forming spiral and dwarf galaxies to extremely low H I column densities. The H I column density sensitivity (3σ over 16 km s−1) ranges from ∼5 × 1017 cm−2 at 90″ resolution to ∼4 × 1019 cm−2 at the highest resolution of 7″. The H I mass sensitivity (3σ over 50 km s−1) is ∼5.5 × 105 M⊙ at a distance of 10 Mpc (the median distance of the sample galaxies). The velocity resolution of the data is 1.4 km s−1. One of the main science goals of the survey is the detection of cold accreting gas in the outskirts of the sample galaxies. The sample was selected to cover a range in H I masses from 107 M⊙ to almost 1011 M⊙ in order to optimally sample possible accretion scenarios and environments. The distance to the sample galaxies ranges from 3 to 23 Mpc. In this paper, we present the sample selection, survey design, and observation and reduction procedures. We compared the integrated H I fluxes based on the MeerKAT data with those derived from single-dish measurement and find good agreement, indicating that our MeerKAT observations are recovering all flux. We present H I moment maps of the entire sample based on the first ten percent of the survey data, and find that a comparison of the zeroth- and second-moment values shows a clear separation in the physical properties of the H I between areas with star formation and areas without related to the formation of a cold neutral medium. Finally, we give an overview of the H I-detected companion and satellite galaxies in the 30 fields, five of which have not previously been cataloged. We find a clear relation between the number of companion galaxies and the mass of the main target galaxy.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Publisher:	EDP Sciences
ISSN:	0004-6361
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 September 2024
Last Modified:	30 Sep 2024 11:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/171870

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