Detection of a Stellar Halo in NGC 4244

(2) STScI; (3) U. of Washington); Anil Seth (1); Julianne Dalcanton (3); Roelof De Jong (2); the GHOSTS team ((1) Harvard-Smithsonian CfA

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Detection of a Stellar Halo in NGC 4244

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arxiv astro-ph/0701704 v1 pith:SAGQP6ZA submitted 2007-01-24 astro-ph

Anil Seth (1) , Roelof De Jong (2) , Julianne Dalcanton (3) , the GHOSTS team ((1) Harvard-Smithsonian CfA , (2) STScI , (3) U. of Washington) This is my paper

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We present the preliminary detection of a stellar halo in the nearby, edge-on galaxy, NGC 4244. Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (HST/ACS), we have examined number counts of red giant branch (RGB) stars along the minor axis of the galaxy out to 10 kpc, with a limiting surface brightness of mu_R ~ 31 mag/arcsec^2. At distances more than 2.5 kpc above the disk, a second stellar component is clearly visible. This component is well fit by either an exponential or a power law. The best-fit exponential scale height is similar to the scale length of the galaxy disk, suggesting that we are indeed detecting a halo component. Furthermore, the color of the RGB stars above 2.5 kpc are significantly bluer than those in the disk, suggesting a more metal-poor population. Outside the local group, this finding represents one of the first detections of a resolved stellar halo in a spiral galaxy.

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