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Understanding biases when fitting disk truncations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2017

Nicolás Cardiel
Affiliation:
Depto. de Astrofísica y CC. de la Atmósfera, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain email: cardiel@ucm.es Instituto de Física de Cantabria (CSIC–Universidad de Cantabria), Santander, Spain
Raffaella A. Marino
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Institute for Astronomy, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Sergio Pascual
Affiliation:
Depto. de Astrofísica y CC. de la Atmósfera, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain email: cardiel@ucm.es
M. Teresa Ceballos
Affiliation:
Instituto de Física de Cantabria (CSIC–Universidad de Cantabria), Santander, Spain
Armando Gil de Paz
Affiliation:
Depto. de Astrofísica y CC. de la Atmósfera, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain email: cardiel@ucm.es
Sebastián F. Sánchez
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México D.F.
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Abstract

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Truncations in the stellar population at the edges of disk galaxies are thought to be a common morphological feature (e.g., Erwin et al. 2005; and more recently Marino et al. 2016). In fact, using imaging data from the SDSS, Pohlen & Trujillo (2006) showed that only ~ 10% of face-on to intermediate inclined, nearby, late-type (Sb-Sdm) spiral galaxies have a normal/standard purely exponential disk down to the noise limit. In situations like these, the simultaneous fit of two lines, joined or not at an intermediate point (the break radius), constitutes a natural step towards the modelling of radial variation in surface brightness, metallicity, or any other relevant parameter. This work shows the results of simple simulations in which the simultaneous fit to two joined lines is compared to the simultaneous fit of two independent lines (i.e., two lines that do not necessarily coincide at an intermediate point), and also to the traditional single ordinary least squares fit. These simulations reveal some biases that should be taken into account when facing these kind of fitting procedures.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2017 

References

Cardiel, N., Gorgas, J., & Aragón-Salamanca, A. 1998, MNRAS 298, 977 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cardiel, N., Marino, R. A., Pascual, S., Ceballos, M. T., Gil de Paz, A., & Sánchez, S. F. 2016, ASP-CS in pressGoogle Scholar
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