MHONGOOSE: A MeerKAT nearby galaxy H i survey

W. J.G. de Blok*, J. Healy, F. M. Maccagni, D. J. Pisano, A. Bosma, J. English, T. Jarrett, A. Marasco, G. R. Meurer, S. Veronese, F. Bigiel, L. Chemin, F. Fraternali, B. W. Holwerda, P. Kamphuis, H. R. Klöckner, D. Kleiner, A. K. Leroy, M. Mogotsi, K. A. OmanE. Schinnerer, L. Verdes-Montenegro, T. Westmeier, O. I. Wong, N. Zabel, P. Amram, C. Carignan, F. Combes, E. Brinks, R. J. Dettmar, B. K. Gibson, G. I.G. Jozsa, B. S. Koribalski, S. S. McGaugh, T. A. Oosterloo, K. Spekkens, A. C. Schröder, E. A.K. Adams, E. Athanassoula, M. A. Bershady, R. J. Beswick, S. Blyth, E. C. Elson, B. S. Frank, G. Heald, P. A. Henning, S. Kurapati, S. I. Loubser, D. Lucero, M. Meyer, B. Namumba, S. H. Oh, A. Sardone, K. Sheth, M. W.L. Smith, A. Sorgho, F. Walter, T. Williams, P. A. Woudt, A. Zijlstra

*Corresponding author for this work

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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 9000 resolution to ∼4 × 1019 cm−2 at the highest resolution of 700. 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.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberA109
Number of pages34
JournalAstronomy & Astrophysics
Volume688
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug-2024

Keywords

  • galaxies: dwarf
  • galaxies: evolution
  • galaxies: ISM
  • galaxies: spiral
  • radio lines: galaxies

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