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# Cosmology Rounding the Cape.

## 1 Introduction

The Cosmic Microwave Background (hereafter CMB) provides an unexcelled probe of the early universe. Its close approximation to a blackbody spectrum constrains the thermal history of the universe since an epoch of approximately one year after the Big Bang. Its isotropy provides a fundamental probe of our standard theories for the origin of large-scale structure back to the effective ‘photosphere’ of the universe, when the universe was only one-thousandth of its present size.

A fundamental prediction of the gravitational instability theory for the origin of galaxies and large-scale structure, our standard model of cosmic evolution, is that the primordial irregularities in density from which these structures developed must have imprinted some trace fluctuations in the CMB, visible as angular anisotropies.

Coeherent oscillations in the CMB anisotropies angular power spectrum have been predicted since long time from simple assumptions about scale invariance and linear perturbation theory (see e.g., Peeb1970 , SZ70 , wilson , vittorio , bondefstathiou ). The physics of these oscillations and their dependence on the various cosmological parameters has been described in great detail in many reviews (review , review2 , review3 , review4 , review5 ). Basically, on sub-horizon scales, prior to recombination, photons and baryons form a tightly coupled fluid that performs acoustic oscillations driven by the gravitational potential. These acoustic oscillations define a structure of peaks in the CMB angular power spectrum that can be measured today.

The last years have been an exciting period for the field of the CMBresearch. With recent CMB balloon-borne and ground-based experiments we are entering a new era of ’precision’ cosmology that enables us to use the CMB anisotropy measurements to constrain the cosmological parameters and the underlying theoretical models.

With the TOCO$`97/98`$ (torbet ,miller ) and BOOMERanG-$`97`$ (mauskopf ) experiments a firm detection of a first peak on about degree scales has been obtained. In the framework of adiabatic Cold Dark Matter (CDM) models, the position, amplitude and width of this peak provide strong supporting evidence for the inflationary predictions of a low curvature (flat) universe and a scale-invariant primordial spectrum (knox , melchiorri , tegb97 ).

The new experimental data from BOOMERanG LDB (netterfield ), DASI (halverson ) and MAXIMA (lee ) have provided further evidence for the presence of the first peak and refined the data at larger multipole. The combined data clearly suggest the presence of a second and third peak in the spectrum, confirming the model prediction of acoustic oscillations in the primeval plasma and sheding new light on various cosmological and inflationary parameters (debe01 , wang , pryke ).

The BOOMERanG group carried out a long duration flight (December 1998/ January 1999) called the Antarctica or LDB flight. During the $`11`$ days flight, BOOMERanG mapped $`1800`$ square degrees in a region of the sky with minimal contamination from the galaxy. Coverage of $`4`$ frequencies ($`150`$, $`240`$ and $`410`$ GHz) with $`16`$ bolometers in total were available. The most recent analysis of the BOOMERanG data has been presented in netterfield . The observations taken from $`4`$ detectors at $`150`$ GHz in a dust-free ellipsoid central region of the map ($`1.8\%`$ of the sky) have been analyzed using the methods of (borrill , hivon , prunet ). The gain calibration are obtained from observations of the CMB dipole. The CMB angular power spectrum, estimated in $`19`$ bands centered between $`\mathrm{}=50`$ to $`\mathrm{}=1000`$ is shown in Figure 1. The error bars on the $`y`$ axis are correlated at about $`10\%`$. A first peak is clearly evident at $`\mathrm{}200`$ and $`2`$ subsequent peaks can be see in the figure. Not shown in the figure is an additional $`10\%`$ calibration error (in $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$) and the uncertainty in the beam size ($`12.9^{}\pm 1.4^{}`$). It is important to note that the beam uncertainty can change the relative amplitude of the peaks, but cannot introduce features in the spectrum.

The DASI experiment is a ground based compact interferometer constructed specifically for observations of the CMB. The specific advantage of interferometers is in reducing the effects of atmospheric emission lay . DASI is composed of $`13`$ element interferometers with correlator operating from $`26`$ to $`36`$ GHz. The baseline of DASI cover angular scales from $`15^{}`$ to $`1.4^o`$. The most recent analysis of the DASI data has been presented in halverson . The observations have been taken over $`97`$ days from the South-Pole during the austral summer at frequencies between $`26`$ and $`36`$ GHz. The calibration was obtained using bright astronomical sources. The CMB angular power spectrum estimated in $`9`$ bands between $`\mathrm{}=100`$ to $`\mathrm{}=900`$ is also shown in Figure 1. There is a $`20\%`$ correlation between the data points. Not shown in the figure is an $`8\%`$ calibration error, while the beam error is negligible. The DASI team found no evidence for foregrounds other than point sources (which are the dominant foregrounds at those frequencies (see e.g. efstteg , tegfor )). Nearly $`30`$ point sources have been detected in the DASI data while a statistical correction has been made for residual point sources that were too faint to be detected.

MAXIMA-I is a balloon experiment, similar in many aspects to BOOMERanG but not long-duration. A description of the instrument can be found in lee . In the latest analysis (lee ) the data from $`3`$, $`150`$, GHz very sensitive bolometers has been analyzed in order to produce a $`3^{}`$ pixelized map of about $`10`$ by $`10`$ degrees. The map-making method used by the MAXIMA team is extensively discussed in stompor2 . The data are calibrated using the CMB dipole. The MAXIMA-I datapoints are also shown in Figure 1. The error bars are correlated at level of $`10\%`$. The $`4\%`$ calibration error is not plotted in the figure. The beam/pointing errors are of order of $`10\%`$ at $`\mathrm{}=1000`$ (see lee ).

Recently, various analyses have been carried out, using parabolas (debe01 , bohdan ) or more elaborate functions (douspis ), trying quantify how well the present data provide evidence for multiple and coherent oscillations.

Since the first peak is evident, the statistical significance of the secondary oscillations is now of greater interest. In debe01  the BOOMERanG data bins centered at $`450<\mathrm{}<1000`$ were analyzed. Using a Bayesian approach, a linear fit $`C_{\mathrm{}}^T=C_A+C_B\mathrm{}`$ is rejected at near $`2\sigma `$ confidence level. Also in debe01 , using a parabolic fit to the data, interleaved peaks and dips were found at $`\mathrm{}=`$ $`215\pm 11`$, $`431\pm 10`$, $`522\pm 27`$, $`736\pm 21`$ and $`837\pm 15`$ with amplitudes of the features $`5760_{324}^{+344}`$, $`1890_{178}^{+196}`$, $`2290_{290}^{+330}`$, $`1640_{380}^{+500}`$, and $`2210_{640}^{+900}`$ $`\mu K^2`$, correspondingly. The reported significance of the detection is $`1.7\sigma `$ for the second peak and dip, and $`2.2\sigma `$ for the third peak.

The evidence for oscillations in the MAXIMA data has been carefully studied in stompor . While there is no evidence for a second peak, the power spectrum shows excess power at $`\mathrm{}860`$ over the average level of power at $`410\mathrm{}785`$ on the $`95\%`$ confidence level. Such a feature is consistent with the presence of a third acoustic peak.

In bohdan  the BOOMERanG, DASI and MAXIMA data were included in a similar analysis. Both DASI and MAXIMA confirmed the main features of the BOOMERanG CMB power spectrum: a dominant first acoustic peak at $`\mathrm{}200`$, DASI shows a second peak at $`\mathrm{}540`$ and MAXIMA-I exhibits mainly a ’third peak’ at $`\mathrm{}840`$.

In douspis  a different analysis was made, based on a function that smoothly interpolates between a spectrum with no oscillations and one with oscillations. Again, within the context of this different phenomenological model, a $`2\sigma `$ presence for secondary oscillations was found.

## 2 Cosmology Rounding the Cape.

In principle, the CDM scenario of structure formation based on adiabatic primordial fluctuations can depend on more than $`11`$ parameters.

However for a first analysis, it possible to restrict ourselves to just $`5`$ parameters: the tilt of primordial spectrum of perturbations $`n_S`$, the optical depth of the universe $`\tau _c`$, the density in baryons and dark matter $`\omega _b=\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$ and $`\omega _{dm}=\mathrm{\Omega }_{dm}h^2`$ and the shift parameter $``$ which is related to the geometry of the universe through (see efsbond , melou ):

$$=2\sqrt{|\mathrm{\Omega }_k|/\mathrm{\Omega }_m}/\chi (y)$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=\mathrm{\Omega }_b+\mathrm{\Omega }_{dm}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_k=1\mathrm{\Omega }_m\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, the function $`\chi (y)`$ is $`y`$, $`\mathrm{sin}(y)`$ or $`\mathrm{sinh}(y)`$ for flat, closed and open universes respectively and

$$y=\sqrt{|\mathrm{\Omega }_k|}_0^{z_{dec}}[\mathrm{\Omega }_m(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_k(1+z)^2+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }]^{1/2}𝑑z.$$
(2)
The restriction of the analysis to only $`5`$ parameters is justified since a reasonable fit to the data can be obtained with no additional parameters.

In Fig. 2 we plot the likelihood contours on the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2n_S`$ planes from the BOOMERanG experiment as reported in debe01 . Since the quantity $``$ depends on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ the CMB constraints on this parameter can be plotted on this plane. As we can see from the top panel in the figure the data strongly suggest a flat universe (i.e. $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_M+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$). From the latest BOOMERanG data one obtains $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1.02\pm 0.06`$ (netterfield ).

The inclusion of complementary datasets in the analysis breaks the angular diameter distance degeneracy in $``$ and provides evidence for a cosmological constant at high significance. Adding the Hubble Space Telescope constraint on the Hubble constant $`h=0.72\pm 0.08`$ (freedman , information from galaxy clustering and from luminosity distance of type Ia supernovae gives (netterfield ) $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.62_{0.18}^{+0.10}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.55_{0.09}^{+0.09}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.73_{0.07}^{+0.10}`$ respectively.

Also interesting is the plot of the likelihood contours in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2n_S`$ plane (Fig.2 bottom panel). As we can see, the present BOOMERanG data is in beautiful agreement with both a nearly scale invariant spectrum of primordial fluctuations, as predicted by inflation, and the value for the baryon density $`\omega _b=0.020\pm 0.002`$ predicted by Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (see e.g. burles ).

An increase in the optical depth $`\tau _c`$ after recombination by reionization (see e.g. haiman  for a review) or by some more exotic mechanism damps the amplitude of the CMB peaks. Even if degeneracies with other parameters such as $`n_S`$ are present (see e.g. debe97 ) the BOOMERanG data provides the upper bound $`\tau _c<0.3`$.

The amount of non-baryonic dark matter is also constrained by the CMB data with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{dm}h^2=0.13\pm 0.04`$ at $`68\%`$ c.l. (netterfield ). The presence of power around the third peak is crucial in this sense, since it cannot be easily accommodated in models based on just baryonic matter (see e.g. melksilk , lmg , mcgaugh  and references therein).

Furthermore, under the assumption of flatness, we can derive important constraints on the age of the universe $`t_0`$ given by:

$$t_0=9.8Gy_0^1\frac{ada}{[\omega _ma+\omega _\mathrm{\Lambda }a^4]^{1/2}}$$
(3)
In iggy  the BOOMERanG constraint on age has been compared with other independent results obtained from stellar populations in bright ellipticals, 238U age-measurement of an old halo star in our galaxy (cayrel ) and age the of the oldest halo globular cluster in the sample of Salaris & Weiss (salaris ). All four methods give completely consistent results, and enable us to set rigorous bounds on the maximum and minimum ages that are allowed for the universe, $`t_0=14\pm 1`$ GYrs (iggy , netterfield ,knoxage ).

The results from the DASI experiment have been extensively reported in pryke  and are perfectly consistent with the BOOMERanG results. Pryke et al. report $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1.04\pm 0.06`$, $`n_s=1.01_{0.06}^{0.08}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.022_{0.003}^{0.004}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{dm}h^2=0.14\pm 0.04`$.

The MAXIMA team reported similar compatible constraints in stompor : $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0.9\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+0.18}{0.16}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.033\pm 0.13`$ at $`2\sigma `$ c.l.. However the MAXIMA data is not good enough to put strong constrains on the spectral index $`n_S`$ and the optical depth $`\tau _c`$ because of the degeneracy between the $`2`$ parameters.

## 3 Is Cosmology Consistent ?

Are the theoretical models in agreement with CMB compatible with the complementary observations of matter fluctuations ?

In Figure $`3`$ we check for this consistency by plotting the envelope of all the matter power spectra from the theoretical models in agreement with the CMB data, together with the recent analysis of the 2dF galaxy survey of thx . As one can see, the region consistent with CMB alone is quite broad (due to the weak CMB constraint on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$) and contains the shape of the 2dF spectrum. Including other cosmological constraints from SN-Ia and HST shrinks the CMB constraint into a region consistent with the shape inferred from 2dF.

On similar scales, recent analyses of the local cluster number counts can be summarised as giving different results for $`\sigma _8`$ mainly due to systematics in the calibration between cluster virial mass and temperature: a high value $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{0.6}\sigma _8=0.55\pm 0.05`$ in agreement with the results of (pierpa , eke ) and a lower one, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{0.6}\sigma _8=0.40\pm 0.05`$ following the analyses of borgani , s8eljak  and liddle  (see also the contribution of Luigi Guzzo in these proceedings and guzzo ).

It is therefore interesting to plot the CMB constraints in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m\sigma _8`$ plane. We do this in Figure $`4`$, where we plot the $`95\%`$ confidence level contour of the combined CMB+HST, CMB+SN-Ia and CMB+2dFGRS analyses together with the high and low constraints on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{0.6}\sigma _8`$ at $`68\%`$ c.l. As we can see, the $`2`$ results are both compatible with the CMB data, however, when additional information such as SN-Ia and 2dF are included, the CMB tends to prefer the lower value.

If future cluster temperature or cosmic shear analyses (see e.g. vande , maoli , refregier , bacon ) were to converge towards a higher $`\sigma _8`$ value, then this could lead to a possible discrepancy with the CMB+2dF result (bridle2 , melksilk ). It will be the task of future experiments and analysis to verify this interesting result.

## 4 Open Questions.

Even if the present CMB observations can be fitted with just $`5`$ parameters it is interesting to extend the analysis to other parameters allowed by the theory. Here I will just summarize a few of them and discuss how well we can constrain them and what the effects on the results obtained in the previous section would be.

Gravity Waves. The metric perturbations created during inflation belong to two types: scalar perturbations, which couple to the stress-energy of matter in the universe and form the “seeds” for structure formation and tensor perturbations, also known as gravitational wave perturbations. Both scalar and tensor perturbations contribute to CMB anisotropy. In the recent CMB analysis by the BOOMERanG and DASI collaborations, the tensor modes have been neglected, even though a sizable background of gravity waves is expected in most of the inflationary scenarios. Furthermore, in the simplest models, a detection of the GW background can provide information on the second derivative of the inflaton potential and shed light on the physics at $`10^{16}Gev`$ (see e.g. hoffman ).

The shape of the $`C_{\mathrm{}}^T`$ spectrum from tensor modes is drastically different from the one expected from scalar fluctuations, affecting only large angular scales (see e.g. crittenden ). The effect of including tensor modes is similar to just a rescaling of the degree-scale $`COBE`$ normalization and/or a removal of the corresponding data points from the analysis.

This further increases the degeneracies among cosmological parameters, affecting mainly the estimates of the baryon and cold dark matter densities and the scalar spectral index $`n_S`$ (melk99 ,kmr , wang , efstathiougw ).

The amplitude of the GW background is therefore weakly constrained by the CMB data alone, however, when information from BBN, local cluster abundance and galaxy clustering are included, an upper limit of about $`r=C_2^T/C_2^S<0.5`$ is obtained.

Scale-dependence of the spectral index. The possibility of a scale dependence of the scalar spectral index, $`n_S(k)`$, has been considered in various works (see e.g. kosowsky , copeland , lythcovi , doste ). Even though this dependence is considered to have small effects on CMB scales in most of the slow-roll inflationary models, it is worthwhile to see if any useful constraint can be obtained. Allowing the power spectrum to bend erases the ability of the CMB data to measure the tensor to scalar perturbation ratio and enlarge the uncertainties on many cosmological parameters.

Recently, Covi and Lyth (covi ) investigated the two-parameter scale-dependent spectral index predicted by running-mass inflation models, and found that present CMB data allow for a significant scale-dependence of $`n_S`$. In Hannestad et al. (hhv , hhvh ) the case of a running spectral index has been studied, expanding the power spectrum $`P(k)`$ to second order in $`ln(k)`$. Again, their result indicates that a bend in the spectrum is consistent with the CMB data.

Furthermore, phase transitions associated with spontaneous symmetry breaking during the inflationary era could result in the breaking of the scale-invariance of the primordial density perturbation. In sarkar , louise  and ywang  the possibility of having step or bump-like features in the spectrum has also been considered.

While much of this work was motivated by the tension between the initial release of the data and the baryonic abundance value from BBN, a sizable feature in the spectrum is still compatible with the latest CMB data (elgaroy ).

Quintessence. The discovery that the universe’s evolution may be dominated by an effective cosmological constant super1  is one of the most remarkable cosmological findings of recent years. One candidate that could possibly explain the observations is a dynamical scalar “quintessence” field. One of the strongest aspects of quintessence theories is that they go some way towards explaining the fine-tuning problem, that is why the energy density producing the acceleration is $`10^{120}M_{pl}^4`$. A vast range of “tracker” (see for example quint ; brax ) and “scaling” (for example wett , ferjoy ) quintessence models exist which approach attractor solutions, giving the required energy density, independent of initial conditions. The common characteristic of quintessence models is that their equations of state, $`w_Q=p/\rho `$, vary with time while a cosmological constant remains fixed at $`w_{Q=\mathrm{\Lambda }}=1`$ (see e.g. blud ). Observationally distinguishing a time variation in the equation of state or finding $`w_Q`$ different from $`1`$ will therefore be a success for the quintessential scenario. Quintessence can also affect the CMB by acting as an additional energy component with a characteristic viscosity. However any early-universe imprint of quintessence is strongly constrained by Big Bang Nucleosynthesis with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q(MeV)<0.045`$ at $`2\sigma `$ for temperatures near $`T1Mev`$ (bhm , mathews ).

In rachel  we have combined the latest observations of the CMB anisotropies and the information from Large Scale Structure (LSS) with the luminosity distance of high redshift supernovae (SN-Ia) to put constraints on the dark energy equation of state parameterized by a redshift independent quintessence-field pressure-to-density ratio $`w_Q`$.

The importance of combining different data sets in order to obtain reliable constraints on $`w_Q`$ has been stressed by many authors (see e.g. PTW , hugen ,jochen ), since each dataset suffers from degeneracies between the various cosmological parameters and $`w_Q`$ . Even if one restricts consideration to flat universes and to a value of $`w_Q`$ constant in time then the SN-Ia luminosity distance and position of the first CMB peak are highly degenerate in $`w_Q`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$, the energy density in quintessence.

In Figure 5 we plot the likelihood contours in the ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, $`w_Q`$) plane for the joint analyses of CMB+SN-Ia+HST+LSS of rachel  together with the contours from the SN-Ia dataset only. As we can see, the combination of the datasets breaks the luminosity distance degeneracy and suggests the presence of dark energy with high significance. Furthermore, the new CMB results provided by BOOMERanG and DASI improve the constraints from previous and similar analysis (see e.g., PTW ,bondq ), with $`w_Q<0.85`$ at $`68\%`$ c.l.. Our final result is then perfectly in agreement with the $`w_Q=1`$ cosmological constant case and gives no support to a quintessential field scenario with $`w_Q>1`$.

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and Neutrinos.

As we saw in the previous section, the SBBN $`95\%`$ CL region, corresponding to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.020\pm 0.002`$ ($`95\%`$ c.l.), has a large overlap with the analogous CMBR contour. This fact, if it will be confirmed by future experiments on CMB anisotropies, can be seen as one of the greatest success, up to now, of the standard hot big bang model.

SBBN is well known to provide strong bounds on the number of relativistic species $`N_\nu `$. On the other hand, Degenerate BBN (DBBN), first analyzed in Ref. d1 ; d2 ; d3 ; Kang , gives very weak constraint on the effective number of massless neutrinos, since an increase in $`N_\nu `$ can be compensated by a change in both the chemical potential of the electron neutrino, $`\mu _{\nu _e}=\xi _eT`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$. Practically, SBBN relies on the theoretical assumption that background neutrinos have negligible chemical potential, just like their charged lepton partners. Even though this hypothesis is perfectly justified by Occam razor, models have been proposed in the literature dibari ; AF ; DK ; DolgovRep ; Casas ; MMR ; McDonald ; Foot , where large neutrino chemical potentials can be generated. It is therefore an interesting issue for cosmology, as well as for our understanding of fundamental interactions, to try to constrain the neutrino–antineutrino asymmetry with the cosmological observables. It is well known that degenerate BBN gives severe constraints on the electron neutrino chemical potential, $`0.06\xi _e1.1`$, and weaker bounds on the chemical potentials of both the $`\mu `$ and $`\tau `$ neutrino, $`|\xi _{\mu ,\tau }|5.6÷6.9`$ Kang , since electron neutrinos are directly involved in neutron to proton conversion processes which eventually fix the total amount of $`{}_{}{}^{4}He`$ produced in nucleosynthesis, while $`\xi _{\mu ,\tau }`$ only enters via their contribution to the expansion rate of the universe.

Combining the DBBN scenario with the bound on baryonic and radiation densities allowed by CMBR data, it is possible to obtain strong constraints on the parameters of the model. Such an analysis was previously performed in (th7 , peloso , hannestad , orito ) using the first data release of BOOMERanG and MAXIMA (debe00 , hanany ). We recall that the neutrino chemical potentials contribute to the total neutrino effective degrees of freedom $`N_\nu `$ as

$$N_\nu =3+\mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha \left[\frac{30}{7}\left(\frac{\xi _\alpha }{\pi }\right)^2+\frac{15}{7}\left(\frac{\xi _\alpha }{\pi }\right)^4\right].$$
(4)
Notice that in order to get a bound on $`\xi _\alpha `$ we have here assumed that all relativistic degrees of freedom, other than photons, are given by three (possibly) degenerate active neutrinos.

Figure 6 summarizes the main results with the new CMB data, reported in hmmmp  for the DBBN scenario. We plot the $`95\%`$ CL contours allowed by DBBN (dot-dashed (green) line), together with the analogous $`95\%`$ CL region coming from the CMB data analysis, with only weak age prior, $`t_0>11`$gyr (full (red) line).

Finally, the solid contour (light, red) is the $`95\%`$ CL region of the joint product distribution $`_{DBBN}`$$`_{CMB}`$. The main new feature, with respect to the results of Ref. th7  is that the resolution of the third peak shifts the CMB likelihood contour towards smaller values for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$, so when combined with DBBN results, it singles out smaller values for $`N_\nu `$. In fact from our analysis we get the bound $`N_\nu 8`$, at $`95\%`$ CL, which translates into the new bounds $`0.01\xi _e0.25`$, and $`|\xi _{\mu ,\tau }|2.9`$, sensibly more stringent than what can be found from DBBN alone.

A similar analysis can also be performed combining CMBR and DBBN data with the Supernova Ia data super1 , which strongly reduces the degeneracy between $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. At $`95\%`$ C.L. we find $`\mathrm{\Delta }N_\nu <7`$, corresponding to $`0.01\xi _e0.22`$ and $`|\xi _{\mu ,\tau }|2.6`$.

Compatible results have been obtained in similar analyses (kneller ,hannestad2 ).

Some caution is naturally necessary when comparing the effective number of neutrino degrees of freedom from BBN and CMB, since they may be related to different physics. In fact the energy density in relativistic species may change from the time of BBN ($`TMeV`$) to the time of last rescattering ($`TeV`$).

Furthermore, as recently pointed out by dolgov , if the large mixing angle solution turns out to be chosen by nature, then all the chemical potentials equilibrate before BBN.

Varying $`\alpha `$. There are quite a large number of experimental constraints on the value of fine structure constant $`\alpha `$. These measurements cover a wide range of timescales (see alpharev  for a review of this subject), starting from present-day laboratories ($`z0`$), geophysical tests ($`z<<1`$), and quasars ($`z1÷3`$), through the CMB ($`z10^3`$) and BBN ($`z10^{10}`$) bounds.

The recent analysis of Webb  of fine splitting of quasar doublet absorption lines gives a $`4\sigma `$ evidence for a time variation of $`\alpha `$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha /\alpha =(0.72\pm 0.18)10^5`$, for the redshift range $`z0.53.5`$. This positive result was obtained using a many-multiplet method, which, it is claimed, achieves an order of magnitude greater precision than the alkali doublet method. Some of the initial ambiguities of the method have been tackled by the authors with an improved technique, in which a range of ions is considered, with varying dependence on $`\alpha `$, which helps reduce possible problems such as varying isotope ratios, calibration errors and possible Doppler shifts between different populations of ions Quas1 ; Quas2 ; Quas3 ; Quas4 .

The present analysis of the $`\alpha `$-dependence relevant cosmological observables like the anisotropy of CMB, Large Scale Structure and the light element primordial abundances does not support evidence for variations of the fine-structure constant (see avelino  and references therein).

Isocurvature modes. Another key assumption is that the primordial fluctuations were adiabatic. Adiabaticity is not a necessary consequence of inflation though and many inflationary models have been constructed where isocurvature perturbations would have generically been concomitantly produced (see e.g. langlois , gordon , bartolo ).

In a phenomenological approach one should consider the most general primordial perturbation, introduced by kavi , and described by a $`5X5`$ symmetric matrix-valued generalization of the power spectrum. As showed by kavi , the inclusion of isocurvature perturbations with auto and cross-correlations modes has dramatic effects on standard parameter estimation with uncertainties becoming of order one.

Even assuming priors such as flatness, the inclusion of isocurvature modes significantly enlarges our constraints on the baryon density trotta  and the scalar spectral index amendola . Pure isocurvature perturbations are highly excluded by present CMB data (enq ).

As we saw in the first section, it is also possible to have active and decoherent perturbations such as those produced by an inhomogeneously distributed form of matter like topological defects. Models based on global defects like cosmic strings and textures are excluded at high significance by the present data (see e.g. DKMrep ). However a mixture of adiabatic$`+`$defects is still compatible with the observations (bouchet , DKMrep ). In principle, toy models based on active perturbations can be constructed turok  that can mimic inflation and retain a good agreement with observations dkm2 .

## 5 Conclusions

The recent CMB data represent a beautiful success for the standard cosmological model. The acoustic oscillations in the CMB angular power spectrum, a major prediction of the model, have now been detected at $`5\sigma `$ C.L. for the first peak and $`2\sigma `$ C.L. for the second and third peak. Furthermore, when constraints on cosmological parameters are derived under the assumption of adiabatic primordial perturbations their values are in agreement with the predictions of the theory and/or with independent observations.

As we saw in the previous section modifications as isocurvature modes or topological defects, are still compatible with current CMB observations, but are not necessary and can be reasonably constrained when complementary datasets are included.

Since the inflationary scenario is in agreement with the data and all the most relevant parameters are starting to be constrained within a few percent accuracy, the CMB is becoming a wonderful laboratory for investigating the possibilities of new physics. With the promise of large data sets from Map, Planck and SNAP satellites and from the SLOAN digital sky survey (see the contribution by Asantha Cooray in these proceedings), opportunities may be open, for example, to constrain dark energy models, variations in fundamental constants and neutrino physics.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the organizers of this exciting conference: H.V. Klapdor-Kleingrothaus and R.D. Viollier. Many thanks also to Rachel Bean, Celine Boehm, Ruth Durrer, Steen Hansen, Pedro Ferreira, Will Kinney, Gianpiero Mangano, Carlos Martins, Gennaro Miele, Carolina Oedman, Marco Peloso, Ofelia Pisanti, Antonio Riotto, Graca Rocha, Joe Silk, and Roberto Trotta for comments, discussions and help.


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# Galaxies on the Blue Edge

## 1 Introduction

Low surface brightness galaxies (LSBs) are an important species of extragalactic object, differing from “normal” high surface brightness (HSB) galaxies in that their stellar disks are more diffuse (see Bothun, Impey, and McGaugh 1997). Their presence went largely unnoticed until the 1980s because they have central surface brightnesses lower than the sky surface brightness ($`\mu _{sky}23`$ mag/□″ in V). Disney (1976) demonstrated that most earlier galaxy catalogs had limiting surface brightnesses near the sky surface brightness and speculated that “what is seen above the sky background may be no reliable measure of what lies underneath.” This speculation proved correct in 1987 with the discovery of Malin 1 (Bothun, Impey, Malin, & Mould, 1987), which appears as a small dwarf in short exposures on photographic plates (such as those of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey \[POSS I\]), but reveals itself to be the largest known disk galaxy in deep exposures. Since then, many deep surveys have been conducted to investigate this previously unexplored population of LSBs.

A proposed explanation for the low surface brightness nature of LSBs is that they are probably very slowly evolving systems and have very low current star formation rates. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that while LSBs are typically HI-rich, their gas surface densities are observed to lie below the Toomre threshold for star formation over most of their gas disks (van der Hulst et al., 1993; de Blok, McGaugh, and van der Hulst, 1996; van Zee, 1999). The Toomre threshold density varies across a galaxy, and thus it is possible that while their densities are globally subcritical, there are regions of LSBs that temporarily meet the Toomre criterion for star formation, and thus some star formation occurs. Martin and Kennicutt (2001) cite examples of globally subcritical galaxies in which star formation is actually quite vigorous (e.g. NGC 2403 and M33). This theory could also explain why most LSBs are very blue, since most of the luminosity in these galaxies comes from a relatively few young stars, although the low metallicity of LSBs also appears to play a role (Gerritsen and de Blok, 1999).

LSBs present a testbed for probing the evolution of stars and the interstellar medium (ISM) in low gas density environments. For example, it has been argued that Blue Compact Dwarfs (BCDs), HI-rich galaxies experiencing a current burst of star formation, are simply the cores of low surface brightness extended disks (Meurer et al., 1996). This potential relationship between BCDs and LSBs is contested (Salzer and Norton, 1999), but it points out that we are still determining “what lies underneath” the sky brightness, so a large sample size is important to developing an understanding of the physical nature of these galaxies. There is thus strong motivation to construct a large catalog of LSBs and similar HI-rich galaxies.

One approach to finding these HI-rich galaxies has been blind radio surveys at $`\lambda `$21-cm (Schneider, 1996; Briggs, 1997; Dickey, 1997; Staveley-Smith, Marquarding, Kilborn, & Webster, 2001), which have the distinct advantage of not being affected by optical selection effects. However, blind radio surveys may be considered by some an inefficient use of resources due to the large amount of telescope time needed per detection obtained. Thus, despite the obvious selection effects, until recently, most HI-rich LSB galaxies were discovered through searches of wide-field optical surveys, typically involving the visual examination of photographic plates to identify objects with low central surface brightness (See Schombert et al. (1992), Sprayberry, Impey, and Irwin (1996), and Impey and Bothun (1997) and the surveys cited therein). Followup is then performed at $`\lambda `$21-cm in order to confirm a high HI content. Some semi-automated searches of photographic plates have also been performed. For example, Impey et al. (1996) used a combination of multiple optical parameters (including surface brightness) with visual followup in order to identify LSB candidates from the APM scans of UK Schmidt photographic plates. One limitation of searching photographic plates is that plate-based surveys can say nothing about the most diffuse LSBs, those below the plate limit. This problem was addressed in the CCD survey of O’Neil et al. (1997a) which has lower $`B`$ surface brightness limits than photographic surveys, although a complete visual inspection of the images was necessary to identify LSB candidates. An automated mechanism for identifying LSBs or other HI-rich, low gas density galaxy candidates from wide-field optical surveys could certainly speed up the construction of a large catalog of LSBs. In addition, the automation could avoid the need for difficult to quantify subjective selection criteria for catalog members.

## 2 HI-rich Galaxies in Color-Magnitude Parameter Space

In a recent study of Hercules Cluster galaxies (Dickey, 1997), we performed an $`\lambda `$21-cm flux-limited survey of galaxies in four VLA fields (designated “NE,” “CE,”, “SW,” and “47”) overlaying the Hercules cluster using the Very Large Array. The impetus for this initial study was to examine the HI properties of galaxies in the variety of environments present throughout the Hercules cluster. Motivated by an interest in possible optical counterparts to these HI-selected galaxies, we cross-identified the Dickey (1997) HI catalog (hereafter the Hercules HI catalog) with an optical catalog from the Minnesota Automated Plate Scanner Catalog of the POSS I (Odewahn et al. (1992); Pennington et al. (1993), hereafter the APS Catalog). The APS Catalog is constructed from digitized scans of both the blue 103a-O (hereafter O) and red 103-E (hereafter E) plates of the POSS I. The APS Catalog can be distinguished from other digitized versions of the POSS I (such as the STScI Digitized Sky Survey) in part by the fact that each POSS I field was independently photometrically calibrated and both plates were scanned in each field, providing $`OE`$ color information.

We obtained optical cross-identifications for 51 of the Hercules HI galaxies in the APS Catalog. For comparison, we also retrieved all the galaxies from the APS catalog in the four VLA fields covered in the Hercules HI study (a total of 7971 galaxies). All the Hercules catalog regions lie in a single POSS I field (P445111The POSS I field designations we use are the modified Luyten POSS I plate numbers, which are typically one greater than the plate reference numbers used in the Guide Star Catalog (Lasker et al., 1990).), so plate-to-plate photometry zero-point variations do not affect the relative colors of these galaxies. We constructed a color-magnitude diagram using $`OE`$ and $`E`$ magnitude data for both the Hercules HI catalog and all the APS galaxies in the same areas (shown in Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). It is evident from this diagram that the Hercules HI catalog galaxies are bluer than the majority of galaxies in the range $`16<m_O<21`$. Therefore most of the optical counterparts for this HI-selected sample of galaxies are on the blue edge of the color-magnitude diagram.

To more precisely quantify this effect, we define the blue edge boundary as the $`OE`$ color separating the bluest 10% of galaxies of comparable $`E`$ magnitude ($`\pm 0.25^m`$) in POSS I field P445 from the rest of the galaxies in that field. At brighter magnitudes, there are too few galaxies to define the blue edge in this manner, so we instead require the blue edge boundary to lie 0.3 magnitude redward of bluest galaxy. This boundary is fit with a 2nd order polynomial, such that

$$(OE)_{BE}=\left\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 10.172+1.4984m_E0.048391m_E^2& \\ \hfill 1.427& \end{array}\right\}\text{where}\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill m_E15.48& \\ \hfill m_E<15.48& \end{array}$$
(1)
where $`m_E`$ is the extinction-corrected $`E`$ magnitude of the galaxy.222Due to variations in the photometry zeropoint from plate to plate, this equation for the blue edge is technically only valid for P445, although it should be a good estimate of the location of the blue edge boundary for most POSS I fields. We determined $`A_O`$ and $`A_E`$ for each galaxy in our sample using the E(B-V) maps from Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis (1998) in conjunction with the UV to near-IR extinction law from Cardelli, Clayton, & Mathis (1989). We also tested extinction corrections based on the E(B-V) maps from Burstein and Heiles (1982) and found no substantial differences in our results.

The blue edge boundaries plotted on all the color-magnitude diagrams in this paper are defined by Equation 1. Using this definition of the “blue edge” boundary, we find over 80% of the Hercules HI galaxies lie blueward this blue edge boundary. Therefore, we speculated that this might be a property common to HI-rich galaxies, including the HI-rich LSBs. Consequently, an effective strategy for automatic optical selection of HI-rich candidates for an HI survey could be to simply observe the galaxies on the blue edge of POSS I color-magnitude parameter space.

## 3 Probing the blue edge of the Pisces-Perseus Supercluster

To test this hypothesis that blue edge galaxies are in general also HI-rich, we extracted a sample of such blue edge galaxies from the APS Catalog in the POSS I fields covering the Perseus-Pisces Supercluster. The Pisces-Perseus Supercluster (hereafter PPS) is one of the largest structures in the nearby universe. At a redshift between 4000 and 6000 km s-1, the PPS and its surrounding filaments cover over 4000 square degrees of the sky, implying a linear extent of approximately 30$`h^1`$ by 50$`h^1`$ Mpc! The densest portion of the PPS, the “ridgeline” as defined by Cabanela and Aldering (1998), extends from ($`\alpha ,\delta `$) of (22h,40°) through (23h,28°) to (3h,40°) (the region near the galaxy cluster A426). The extent of this supercluster is illustrated in Figure 1 of Giovanelli, Haynes & Chincarini (1986) where it can also be seen that the PPS encompasses a very broad range of density environments, ranging from the high density regions of several rich clusters (including A262, A347, and A426) through a large volume with much lower densities, but higher than the field.

As noted by Giovanelli and Haynes (1985), the HI content of a galaxy can vary dramatically depending on its position relative to the cluster center. This is not simply a reflection of the established morphology-density relationship for galaxies (Dressler, 1980), but rather is evidence that spiral galaxies suffer from HI stripping near cluster centers. A similar effect was seen by Dickey (1997) in the Hercules cluster, where extended HI disks are almost completely absent in galaxies in some regions but prevalent in others. HI stripping is seen to be a very efficient process in high density regions such as rich clusters (Cayatte, Kotanyi, Balkowski, & van Gorkom, 1994). Consequently, while we will not directly investigate the efficiency of HI stripping here, the importance of surveying lower density environments is clear if we are to improve our odds of detecting galaxies with massive HI disks.

Our criterion for building a candidate list of potential HI-rich galaxies was to select APS Catalog galaxies on the blue edge of POSS I color-magnitude parameter space with apparent magnitude, $`m_E`$, between 16.0 and 21.0. We restricted our search to the portion of the sky within 2° of the PPS ridgeline defined by Cabanela and Aldering (1998) and within the declination range of the Arecibo telescope beam. This is a region west of the A426 and A262 with no obvious rich clusters. After removal of plate flaws and scratches identified by their spurious $`OE`$ colors and $`E`$ mean surface brightnesses, we selected the 30 bluest APS catalog galaxies in each 0.5 $`E`$ magnitude-wide bin between $`E`$ magnitude of 16.0 and 20.0. Using this criterion, we select the bluest 1% (or less) of the galaxies in each magnitude bin. From this initial list of 240 candidates on five POSS I fields (P293 through P297, see Table 1) we quickly performed a visual inspection of 125 of these candidates chosen to be the bluest galaxies at each $`E`$ magnitude. The visual inspection of the POSS I prints allowed us to reject potential star–galaxy and star–star blended images (which are prevalent at low Galactic latitudes). Subsequent examination of POSS I image parameters of the “rejected” candidates showed they had higher surface brightnesses (lower mean $`\mu _E`$ values), and had smaller second moments, just as one would expect for stars. However, the “rejected” candidates were also typically fainter and smaller, most likely a result of the difficulty of classifying objects smaller than 0.1 mm in size on the plates by eye. Using this method, in one afternoon we reduced the subset of 125 candidates to 71 “clean” candidates for this HI search, hereafter referred to simply as the blue edge candidates (see Table 2) Several candidates are listed in the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED); those cross-identifications are noted in Table 2.333The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The PPS lies within 30° of the Galactic plane, so Galactic extinction is significant. Extinction corrections ranged from 0.15 to 0.35 magnitudes in the O bandpass and 0.09 to 0.19 magnitudes in the E bandpass (see Table 2). Thus, we are probing an absolute magnitude range of roughly $`18`$ to $`13.5`$ in O, at the PPS distance, fainter than the measured $`M_{}`$ of $`19.4`$ for the PPS (Cabanela and Aldering, 1998). No k-corrections have been applied to any of the data presented in this paper as all the galaxies are below a redshift of 10,000 km s-1 and any such corrections would be less than 0.1 magnitudes.

## 4 Arecibo Observations

We observed 31 of our blue edge candidates, as well as NGC 634 (for comparison to previous studies), with the 305m Arecibo telescope of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center over 14 nights between August 6 and August 20, 1998 in conjunction with another observing project (Cabanela and Dickey, 1999).444The National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center is operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. These observed blue edge candidates were chosen from the full list of 71 blue edge candidates (listed in Table 2), based only on their being accessible to the Arecibo beam during the observing run. The new Gregorian feed was used with the narrow L band receiver, resulting in a beam that is roughly oval in shape (depending on the zenith angle of the observation) with a FWHM of approximately 3′.

### 4.1 Observational Methods

We obtained 21cm line spectra centered on the PPS mean velocity of 5000 km s-1 using staggered 25 MHz bands overlapping by 5 MHz, so that our final velocity coverage was 0 to 10,000 km s-1 (1375 to 1420 MHz). The telescope and receivers performed very well, with a gain between 6 and 9 K Jy-1 and system temperature between 30 and 35 K depending on zenith angle. The spectra were calibrated using a previously measured gain function with zenith angle (provided by Phil Perillat).

Observations were taken in two on and off pairs, with 4 minutes of integration on the galaxy position followed by an equal integration on a reference position offset by 5 minutes in RA. The initial $`\frac{onoff}{off}`$ spectra for each target (resulting from 8 minutes on and 8 minutes off) was stored for later processing. Some candidates were reobserved and the multiple observations were co-added to reduce rms noise or to confirm a signal in the presence of strong radio frequency interference (RFI). In one case a galaxy was detected in the reference position, so we reobserved the target galaxy with the reference position taken earlier rather than later (negative offset in RA).

After total telescope time of about 16 minutes per galaxy (for single observations) we obtained spectra with rms noise of 18 mK in 24 kHz channels, giving a $`3\sigma `$ detection threshold of about $`5\times 10^7M_{}`$ of HI per channel at 67 Mpc distance assuming the lowest gain of 6 K Jy-1. Fourteen of the 31 blue edge candidates observed were detected in HI and 4 were tentatively detected. These detections are detailed in Section 4.3.

### 4.2 Managing Radio Frequency Interference

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is the bane of extragalactic spectroscopy in the centimeter-wave band, particularly for single dish surveys like this one. Strong RFI can completely compromise an entire scan, but much more common is weak interference that is confined to a fairly narrow frequency range. These weak RFI signals can and do appear throughout our band. Some are fairly constant, and are thus easily distinguishable, while others are intermittent. Some appear and disappear in the on$``$source and off$``$source positions just as a real galaxy would. Some even reappear at roughly the same time on different days, so they can seem to be repeatable from day to day as a real galaxy must be. Thus it is not possible to definitively distinguish between a real extragalactic HI emission line and an interfering terrestrial signal by any means.

However, a very useful diagnostic for separating RFI from galaxy emission lines is the difference between the two circular polarizations. Since terrestrial interference is typically somewhat linearly polarized, any difference between the signal in the two polarizations identifies it as likely interference (e.g. \- Schneider 1996). Our method for masking out interfering signals is based on an interactive task which displays the eight spectra (four bands times two polarizations) for each scan together, and then allows flagging of individual channels or channel ranges in one or both polarizations.

In addition to generating spurious detections, RFI consistently covered certain frequency ranges, which means that our non-detections must be qualified by details of which velocity ranges were not searchable due to consistent RFI. As an overall guide, Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge shows the aggregate of all frequencies which were blanked due to interference in our entire run. These were determined for each source observation separately. Most spectra have three to five interference signals between 1375 and 1405 MHz. Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge shows that the frequency range 1388.4 to 1388.6 MHz (6865 to 6910 km s-1) is hardly ever usable, while the range from 1380 to 1382 (8300 to 8800 km s-1) is often covered as well. These velocity ranges are therefore effectively excluded from our search.

In a few cases, it was difficult to determine whether we had observed weak RFI or a narrow emission line from a galaxy. In such cases we have tried to reobserve on different days to confirm the detection, but this was not always feasible. We class such observations as tentative detections (Group 3 in Table 3). It is also possible that interference can blend with a real galaxy detection to cause errors in the line integral, center velocity, and velocity width measurements. We indicate any such suspicious values for these measurements in Table 3.

### 4.3 Review of Detected Galaxies

Of the 31 blue edge candidates we observed, 19 (or 61%) are detected (or tentatively detected) in HI. In addition to these 19 detections, we detected an additional three galaxies in off-scans and obtained a serendipitous detection of UGC 630 in the field of MAPS-P295-1915216.555The IAU designation of objects in the Minnesota Automated Plate Scanner Catalog indicates the POSS I field number, in this case P295, and the unique O plate “starnum” identifying that object in that field, in this case 1915216.

The detected galaxies were divided into five groups to aid in the initial analysis. Group 1 consists of HI detections with high signal-to-noise ratios and contains 14 of our HI galaxies and the serendipitously observed galaxy, UGC 630 (see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). Group 2 consists of positions around MAPS-P295-1369071, which were repeatedly observed in order to confirm that our detection is not confused by another galaxy on the edge of the field with the Arecibo beam (see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). Group 3 contains the four tentative HI detections (see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). Group 4 consists of the three galaxies we detected in the off$``$scans of our galaxies (see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). And group 5 contains NGC 634, which was observed for comparison with previous observations. We discuss the detected galaxies individually below.

The 3′ Arecibo beam does not resolve the galaxies and thus provides no direct information on the rotation curves of these HI disks. Our goal has been detection, not high-resolution HI imaging. However, many dwarf galaxies which have been mapped with aperture synthesis telescopes show rising rotation curves, not only throughout their optical disks, but throughout their HI extent as well (Taylor et al., 1996). In the extreme case of a solid body rotation curve throughout the HI disk, the resulting single dish spectrum should have a semi-circular or semi-elliptical shape, with a single peak at the center velocity. If the rotation curve flattens at large radii this shape changes to the familiar ”two-horned” profile, with two peaks at the two velocity extrema of the line, which correspond to the projected rotation velocities of the two ends of the major axis (e.g. Lavezzi and Dickey 1997). Most of our observed galaxies have profiles which have a square-top or two-horned shape, suggesting that their rotation curves are flattening at large radii. This needs to be confirmed with aperture synthesis mapping.

Our individual observations are detailed below, in the order in which they appear in Table 3.

MAPS-P293-268610: This galaxy was observed twice. The first time its spectrum was confused by emission from the galaxy UGC 105 in the reference position. We reobserved it the following day, with the reference spectrum taken at $`\alpha 5^m`$ instead of $`\alpha +5^m`$, to sort out the two profiles. In fact there is no overlap in velocity between the two galaxies, so we have averaged the two observations here, blanking the channels below 8250 km s-1, which are covered by UGC 105. The profile appears to have two peaks (“horns”) with sharp edges on either side from which we may infer that this is a rotating gas disk with a rotation curve that flattens at large radii. This inference assumes a “typical” HI surface density profile for a disk galaxy and will require confirmation via aperture synthesis observations.

MAPS-P293-100987: This galaxy, also identified as F409-05 from Eder et al. (1989), shows a two-horned profile shape, indicating an extended, flat rotation curve in the outer regions (assuming an HI distribution as seen in disk galaxies). While our velocity, 4851 km s-1, is consistent with the velocity of 4864 km s-1 reported by Eder et al. (1989), our gas mass, $`1.8\times 10^9M_{}`$, is a bit lower than the value of $`2.26\times 10^9M_{}`$ we compute from Eder et al.’s data.

MAPS-P293-249758: This galaxy was observed twice on different days, and the results are consistent, however on both days there appears to be a narrow interference spike near the center of the line profile. The presence of this interference in the middle of such a faint line raises the concern that the entire profile may be interference generated, either by sidebands of the signal or by the spectrometer resolving function. However that interference signal is present throughout the entire night of observing on both days, and it never shows width of more than about four channels (1388.5 to 1388.6 MHz). So although our measurements of this profile suffer from uncertainty due to the necessity of masking these channels in the middle of the presumed galactic line, we are moderately confident of the detection.

MAPS-P293-179271 This clearly detected line comes from a very faint galaxy, whose optical image is almost blended with a pair of bright stars. The line profile is single peaked, which suggests a disk with a solid body rotation curve, a face-on orientation, or perhaps a turbulent cloud of gas.

MAPS-P294-727319: This faint, diffuse galaxy has an extremely bright HI line, which indicates a gas mass of roughly $`2\times 10^9M_{}`$. Yet the line is centrally peaked, which implies that it comes from a cloud or disk which does not have a flat rotation curve, but may be more or less in solid body rotation. A warped disk is one possible explanation of the line shape, although confirmation will, again, require aperture synthesis observations.

MAPS-P295-699736: This is a strong and very well detected line. We repeated the observation on two different days with consistent results, and there is no interference nearby in frequency on either day. Optically the galaxy is extended, but everywhere low in surface brightness, just above the plate limit in both colors. This is a good example of a massive gas disk with very low optical luminosity.

MAPS-P293-1790367: This galaxy was observed twice, with consistent results between the two days. There is a suggestion of two “horns”, but these may correspond to two systems which appear separate on the optical image.

MAPS-P295-823940: This galaxy was observed on two different days, with consistent results. However the second day’s observations were compromised by interference on the low velocity side of the galaxy (5250 to 5350 km s-1). Such a narrow, single-peaked profile could easily be generated by an interfering signal. We have moderate confidence that this does represent a detection, but there is a significant chance (perhaps 10 percent) that we are being fooled by an interference signal.

MAPS-P295-1693362: This relatively bright galaxy (cross-identified in NED as CGCG 501-047) shows a very clear two-horned profile shape. The gas disk probably has an extended, flat rotation curve in the outer parts. The optical image has a bright nucleus and an extended disk.

MAPS-P295-1915216: The spectrum in this direction shows two emission features which look like galaxies. The stronger one (at 4878 km s-1) has a classic two-horned shape, indicating a disk in circular rotation with a rotation curve which flattens at the outer edges. The second feature (at 6786 km s-1) is weaker, but still very well detected above the noise. The optical image shows a relatively large galaxy (identified in NED as UGC 630) about an arc minute to the west of the blue dwarf which was our target. UGC 630 has a measured redshift of 4884 km s-1 (Schneider et al., 1990), we therefore identify the other (6786 km s-1) line with MAPS-P295-1915216.

MAPS-P295-642385: This galaxy was observed on two different days, with consistent results. On one day there was interference at higher velocities (4850 to 5000 km s-1), but the second day is very clean in this area, so we are very confident of the detection. The line is very narrow and single-peaked, which suggests solid body rotation throughout the HI, if there is a disk in circular rotation. Several faint, diffuse images appear to the south west of the galaxy, all within the beam area, so the correspondence of the line with the central object is in some question.

MAPS-P295-1202937: This is a very strong detection of an extremely faint galaxy. The line profile is clearly two-peaked, corresponding to an extended disk of gas. We have not had time to map around this position, but there seem to be no alternative galaxies in the vicinity which could account for the observed gas.

MAPS-P295-1326244: This is a very narrow line from a relatively bright galaxy. The detection is somewhat tentative as we have not had time to confirm it with a reobservation. The narrow width makes it somewhat more likely than most of our detections to be interference. Assuming it is real, the shape of the profile suggests either a disk seen nearly face on, or one with a solid-body rotation curve.

MAPS-P295-910484: This strong line is a clear-cut detection of this diffuse, blue galaxy. The sharp edges on the line, and the suggestion of two peaks, imply an extended disk of gas with a rotation curve which flattens at the edges.

MAPS-P295-1369071: This strong line was observed only on one day, but it is far from any interference and the detection is quite solid. The line shape suggests a disk with an extended, flat rotation curve. The mass of gas in this galaxy is so high, and its optical luminosity so low, that we have searched the vicinity of the object to confirm that the gas cloud is centered on the optical candidate. We observed three other positions, one on either side of this object offset by 1.3′, and one centered on the nearby galaxy NPM1G $`+30.0027`$. The results confirm that this faint blue galaxy is the center of the HI cloud. The spectra on either side have similar profiles, but weaker by about a factor of 0.6, as expected given the beam shape. The emission toward NPM1G $`+30.0027`$ is much fainter yet. Thus the identification of this line with the faint blue galaxy MAPS-P295-1369071 appears to be conclusive. The extended Arecibo observations also allow us to determine that the direction of the galaxy’s spin vector is northward. The relationship among these beam centers and their corresponding spectra are illustrated on Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge.

MAPS-P295-2259922: This galaxy exhibits is a very weak line. It appears at about the five sigma level in two different observations taken on two different days. The results of the two are consistent within the errors. On neither day is there obvious interference at this frequency, although on the first day there is interference at somewhat higher velocity (6000 km s-1). We have confidence that this is a real emission line, but given its low signal-to-noise we class it as a tentative detection.

MAPS-P295-83632: This is a very tentative detection, the most questionable of all of our “lines.” The profile resembles a weak interference feature. Although the signal-to-noise ratio is good, we are very hesitant to identify this feature as real HI emission because of its narrow width and very sharp edge. We have not had time to follow-up with a reobservation on a second day.

MAPS-P295-773634: This weak line is a very tentative detection. It was observed only once, we did not have time to return for another observation on another day. The line appears identically in both polarizations, and there is no interference nearby. The baseline is quite flat, so it is unlikely that this could be an artifact of the receiver or spectrometer. However the line is near the radiometer noise limit, so its parameters cannot be well measured.

MAPS-P295-576122: This weak line is a very tentative detection. It was observed only once. There is a narrow interference feature about 150 km s-1 higher, but it seems to be confined to an extremely narrow band. We have not had time to reobserve this position to confirm the detection.

UGC 105: Detected in the reference beam for MAPS-P293-268610. We found HI associated with UGC 105, 78″ from the reference beam center. Its identification is supported by the match of our velocity to the velocity of 8046 km s-1 from the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (de Vaucouleurs et al. (1991), hereafter RC3) catalog (de Vaucouleurs et al., 1991).

MAPS-P293-102675: A serendipitous detection in the reference beam, a relatively bright galaxy 50″ from the reference position of MAPS-P293-100987 appears to have been detected, as there are no other likely candidates in the field of the reference beam.

MAPS-P294-444433: An apparent serendipitous detection at the reference position of MAPS-P295-1577104, this curious feature appeared as a pair of negative lines in our observation of this galaxy. It is in a fairly interference-free region of the band, although there is a narrow spike about 100 km s-1 higher in velocity than the center of the higher velocity emission line. The nearest galaxy to the reference position of the observation appears to be MAPS-P294-444433, located 83″ from the beam center. The detection is only tentative, and is not obviously associated with the galaxy, but it is worthy of follow-up observations. If it is real, it may represent either two objects, or a disk or ring of gas.

NGC 634: We observed this galaxy as a test of the system. It has been described before by Wegner, Haynes, & Giovanelli (1993) and by Theureau et al. (1998). The central velocities in the literature are 4942 and 4925 km s-1, we find 4916 km s-1, which is in good agreement, given the broad HI line width. Wegner, Haynes, & Giovanelli (1993) find widths of 520 km s-1 at 50% of the mean and 492 km s-1 at 20% of the peak versus our measurement of 512 km s-1. We measure 4.5 Jy-km s-1 for the line integral; Theureau et al. (1998) find 4.3 Jy-km s-1 but Wegner, Haynes, & Giovanelli (1993) find 6.8 Jy-km s-1. Thus our calibration seems to be in rough agreement with earlier work, although the range of values for the line integral is a bit worrisome.

## 5 HI Properties of the blue edge Galaxies

The HI masses of our (detected) blue edge galaxies range from $`2.7\times 10^8M_{}`$ to $`3.6\times 10^9M_{}`$.666We do not attempt to derive the dynamical masses for our blue edge galaxies because the resolution of the POSS I plates for images this small results in large uncertainties in the galaxy’s inclination angle. These gas masses fall about 1 dex below the turnoff in the HI mass function (Schneider, 1996), but on the high end of the gas masses typically seen for dwarf irregulars such as the SMC (Skillman, 1996). This is consistent with their integrated HI spectral profiles, which generally show two-horned profiles typical of galaxies with flat rotation curves. Such flat rotation curves are common for larger spirals and LSBs (Verheijen and Sancisi (2001) and references therein) as opposed to dwarf galaxies, whose rotation curves typically rise throughout their disks (Taylor et al., 1996).

In order to estimate the gas mass-to-light ratios of our blue edge galaxies, we compute the distance modulus as

$$mM=255\mathrm{log}H_0+5\mathrm{log}cz+1.086(1q_0)z$$
(2)
(Weinberg, 1972), where we assume $`H_0`$ = 72 km s-1 and $`q_0`$ = 0.5. No corrections have been made for Virgo infall or internal extinction. Using this definition of the distance modulus, we find that our blue edge galaxies have gas mass-to-light ratios, $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$, of 0.09 to 4.79 in solar units. If $`M_{H𝙸}/L_OM_{H𝙸}/L_B`$, this indicates most of our blue edge galaxies have gas mass-to-light ratios considerably higher than typical HSB spiral galaxies, which have $`M_{H𝙸}/L_B`$ typically below 0.60 (in solar units) (Roberts and Haynes, 1994; Maia, Willmer, & Da Costa, 1998). Such high gas mass-to-light ratios are typical of LSBs (Impey et al., 1996; O’Neil et al., 1997a). This suggests our blue edge galaxies may have HI properties common to LSBs, something we will investigate more throughly in Section 6.

Before continuing, we briefly address an issue we mentioned in Section 3: the possibility of HI stripping in galaxies near the PPS ridgeline. The HI mass deficiency of galaxies is known to correlate with environmental density (Giovanelli and Haynes, 1985). Although we do not have density estimates for the PPS per se, we previously defined a high surface density “ridgeline” based on the distribution of the CfA Redshift Catalog (hereafter ZCAT, Huchra et al. (1992), 2000 February version) galaxies in the PPS field (Cabanela and Aldering, 1998). Because the PPS is oriented edge-on (Giovanelli and Haynes, 1988), angular distances from the ridgeline correspond to distances from the highest density portions of the PPS. Our investigation finds no correlation between HI mass and angular distance from the PPS ridgeline (see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgea). A very weak correlation ($`r=0.26`$) between the HI mass to light ratio, $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$, and angular distance from the ridgeline is observed (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgeb). The best-fit line describing this correlation is

$$M_{H𝙸}/L_O(r_d)=0.613(\pm 0.564)\times r_d+1.750(\pm 0.061),$$
(3)
where $`r_d`$ is the ridgeline distance in degrees. However, the best-fit slope is only 1.1$`\sigma `$ from a value of zero, there is a significant likelihood there is no correlation at all.

## 6 Are the blue edge Galaxies a Distinct Population?

This project started with the realization that the majority of the optical counterparts to the HI-selected galaxies from Dickey (1997) lay on the “blue edge” of the POSS I color-magnitude diagram for galaxies. Our HI observations show the converse is also true: many blue edge galaxies appear to be HI-rich. This leads us to ask in what other ways these “blue edge” galaxies are distinct from the “normal” HSB galaxy population (other than being bluer)? The answer, as we will show, is that the 19 blue edge galaxies we detected in HI (those in Groups 1, 2, or 3) are clearly a distinct population from “normal” HSB galaxies in both their optical and HI properties. We support our claim using several previously published HSB and LSB galaxy catalogs (Table 4) to construct four major pieces of evidence that we will outline in this Section. First, the bivariate brightness distributions of our blue edge galaxies are more similar to those of LSBs than HSBs. Second, known LSBs appear as blue edge galaxies on the POSS I. Third, the HI masses of our blue edge galaxies are much lower than typical HSB galaxies, but typical of known LSBs at comparable redshifts. And finally, the gas mass to light ratio of our blue edge galaxies are similar to known LSBs of similar POSS I color.

### 6.1 The Bivariate Brightness Distribution of blue edge Galaxies

Driver and Cross (2000) suggest an approach to classifying galaxies based on their positions in a bivariate brightness distribution (hereafter BBD) plot, a plot of mean surface brightness versus absolute magnitude. They use this approach to show that the traditional Hubble sequence of galaxies segregates reasonably well into different regions of this parameter space. Furthermore, non-Hubble sequence galaxies such as LSBs and cDs are easily accommodated on the BBD plot and appear isolated from Spirals and Ellipticals. Thus, a BBD plot provides a simple means of comparing the optical properties of the blue edge galaxies we observed with those of previously identified HSB and LSB galaxies. With this goal in mind, we cross-identified several galaxy catalogs containing redshifts with the APS catalog (those listed under the “BBD” column of Table 4). Correcting the $`O`$ magnitudes (but not diameters) for Galactic extinction as outlined in Section 2, we estimated the absolute $`O`$ magnitude (using equation 2) and mean $`O`$ surface brightness for each comparison galaxy.

A BBD of our blue edge galaxies and a large sample of “normal” HSB galaxies in the PPS field extracted from the ZCAT clearly shows that the two populations differ (See Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). We can account for the fact that our blue edge galaxies are intrinsically fainter than the ZCAT by noting that while not explicitly flux-limited, the ZCAT contains mostly bright galaxies with $`O<17`$. However, our blue edge galaxies are also lower surface brightness than the ZCAT galaxies. This is intriguing since surface brightness was not a criterion for identifying blue edge galaxies. By adding POSS I data for LSB galaxies identified from another plate-based survey (Impey et al., 1996) and a CCD-based survey (O’Neil et al. (1997a), hereafter OBC) to our previous BBD plot, we find that our blue edge galaxies lie on the high luminosity end of the LSB population in the BBD plot. This implies blue edge galaxies are very similar galaxies to the LSBs seen on the POSS I (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge).

### 6.2 Known LSBs in POSS I Color-Magnitude Parameter Space

Driven by the fact that the BBD of our blue edge galaxies overlaps with that of known LSBs, we now examine the POSS I color-magnitude distributions of previously identified LSBs, including several from LSB catalogs with no redshifts available (see the “color-magnitude” column of Table 4). A plot of the color-magnitude distribution of these LSBs shows that the majority of them also lie along the blue edge (see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). We quantify this by defining the color difference from the blue edge boundary as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(OE)_{BE}=(OE)(OE)_{BE}$$
(4)
where $`(OE)`$ is the extinction corrected $`OE`$ color of the galaxy and the $`(OE)_{BE}`$ is defined by equation 1. Using equation 4, we determine the cumulative $`\mathrm{\Delta }(OE)_{BE}`$ distributions for each of these LSB galaxy catalogs (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). All these catalogs show $`\mathrm{\Delta }(OE)_{BE}`$ distributions very different from the general POSS I galaxy population, but quite similar to each other. Whereas only 10% of APS catalog galaxies have $`\mathrm{\Delta }(OE)_{BE}<0`$ (by definition), over 68% of LSBs galaxies lie blueward of the blue edge boundary! Surprisingly, this is even the case for the LSBs from the OBC catalog, which includes many LSBs with red $`BV`$ colors. This apparent discrepancy will be addressed in Section 7.

The maximum difference of the cumulative $`\mathrm{\Delta }(OE)_{BE}`$ distributions between datasets can be used as a Kolmogorov–Smirnov (K–S) D statistic to compute the likelihood that the datasets were drawn from the same parent distribution (see Press et al. (1992)). Such K–S tests indicate that these LSBs have probabilities of less than $`10^{15}`$ of being drawn from the same $`\mathrm{\Delta }(OE)_{BE}`$ distribution as the POSS I galaxies (See Table 5). This doesn’t mean that all these LSBs have identical $`\mathrm{\Delta }(OE)_{BE}`$ distributions (a quick examination of Table 5 shows they don’t), but they are clearly all drawn from populations that lie preferentially on the blue edge of POSS I color-magnitude parameter space.

### 6.3 Comparison of HI Properties with Known LSBs

We now compare the HI properties of our blue edge galaxies (as outlined in Section 5) with those of three other galaxy catalogs: a high surface brightness catalog of bright galaxies (the RC3) and two LSB catalogs (see the “$`M_{H𝙸}`$” column of Table 4). Since a given radio flux limit will result in a varying minimum HI mass limit with varying redshift, we restrict the comparison galaxies to the observed range of redshifts of our blue edge galaxies (4000 km s-1 $`<cz<9000`$ km s-1). To ensure that our comparison samples are not biased toward fainter galaxies, we also require that they exhibit the same optical flux limit of $`m_E<20`$ as the blue edge galaxies. Applying these restrictions results in relatively small comparison samples of LSBs (see Table 4), but ensures they have similar optical flux and HI mass limits.

Our blue edge galaxies exhibit $`M_{H𝙸}`$ values peaked around $`\mathrm{log}(M_{H𝙸})9.0`$. This peak lies roughly 0.8 dex below the peak observed for HSB galaxies from the RC3, but lies in the range of the $`M_{H𝙸}`$ values seen for LSBs (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgea). We quantify the level of resemblance between these distributions of $`M_{H𝙸}`$ values by using K–S tests to compare them (see Table 6). As expected based on Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge, our “blue edge” galaxies have an $`M_{H𝙸}`$ distribution that is most similar to the LSBs, with the OBC galaxies having an 88% chance of being drawn from the same parent $`M_{H𝙸}`$ distribution. This stands in marked contrast to the HSB galaxies in the RC3, which have only a probability of $`3\times 10^{10}`$ of sharing the same parent $`M_{H𝙸}`$ distribution as the blue edge galaxies. Clearly, based on these small samples, our blue edge galaxies share more in common with LSBs than HSBs where there gas masses are concerned.

In retrospect, this should not be a very surprising result. If galaxies exhibit a limited range of gas mass-to-light ratios, we expect that the more luminous galaxies will tend to have higher total gas masses. This expectation is confirmed in a plot of $`M_{H𝙸}`$ versus $`L_O`$ for these galaxies (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge;Table 7). The RC3 galaxies all lie at relatively high luminosities and have correspondingly high $`M_{H𝙸}`$ values. Our blue edge galaxies lie at the low luminosity, low gas mass edge of the RC3 distribution. Their distribution does not extend to the very lowest luminosities seen for LSB galaxies. Notably, the distribution of $`M_{H𝙸}`$ versus $`L_O`$ for these galaxies has a slope less than one, indicating higher gas mass-to-light ratios for less luminous galaxies, an observation previously made by Staveley-Smith, Davies, and Kinman (1992). A separate examination of the $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ distribution of our blue edge galaxies reveals it is peaked around $`\mathrm{log}(M_{H𝙸}/L_O)0.25`$ (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgeb). This is significantly higher than the peak $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ for the RC3 galaxies ($`0.5`$ dex higher) but appears to be roughly equal to the peak of the distributions for the LSBs. This is supported by K–S tests comparing the distributions which show both LSB catalogs have a 20% or greater chance of sharing the same gas mass-to-light distribution as our blue edge galaxies, while the HSB galaxies from the RC3 show only a 0.3% chance. On the other hand, it appears that our blue edge galaxies lack the extremely high $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ galaxies seen in LSB catalogs (as seen in Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge), though this conclusion is based on a population of only 19 blue edge galaxies.

We might be able to explain this bias against extremely high $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ blue edge galaxies by considering that color and $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ may be correlated. Bothun (1984) found that the $`M_{H𝙸}/L_B`$ of late-type spirals was correlated with $`BV`$ and even more strongly with $`BH`$. Bothun ascribed these correlations to a relationship between the initial star formation rate (SFR) of the galaxy and its subsequent evolution (Bothun, 1982). The better correlation using infrared bandpasses was attributed to the fact that blue luminosities of galaxies are more affected by uncertain levels of internal extinction. Giraud (1987) instead argues that the correlation using infrared bandpasses is better because $`H`$ bandpass luminosity depends on an older population of stars than $`B`$ bandpass luminosity and thus $`M_{H𝙸}/L_H`$ is a measure of the present HI reservoir of the galaxy versus its star formation history (rather than its current SFR). More recently, Matthews and Gallagher (1997) find that for extreme late-type galaxies, the blue galaxies all have high $`M_{H𝙸}/L_V`$, while red galaxies exhibit a broad range of gas mass-to-light ratios. Matthews and Gallagher suggest that this broad range in $`M_{H𝙸}/L_V`$ for red galaxies is because some galaxies with older stellar populations retain large HI reservoirs in their outer disks, where surface densities drop below the Toomre criterion for star formation to occur.

Using the four catalogs cited above (see the $`M_{H𝙸}`$ column of Table 4), we construct a plot of $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ versus $`OE`$ (see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). This plot reveals a trend similar to that cited by Matthews and Gallagher (1997) in that redder galaxies tend to have a wider distribution of $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ than blue galaxies. From this plot, it is clear our “blue edge” galaxies mark the bluest end of a flared distribution of $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ versus $`OE`$. From this plot, we see that the LSBs reaching gas mass-to-light ratios much higher than our blue edge galaxies are all relatively red. And from examining this diagram, we see our blue edge galaxies lie in a region dominated by very blue LSBs, which have a very similar range of smaller $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ ratios. In a model proposed by Matthews and Gallagher (1997), this suggests our galaxies have a lower likelihood of having large untapped HI reservoirs in their outer disks than the redder LSBs.

### 6.4 The blue edge Galaxies as LSBs

Classifying a galaxy as a bona fide LSB traditionally requires deep images to assess its surface brightness profile to see if it meets specified “low surface brightness” criterion. Without such images for our blue edge galaxies, we can not absolutely verify their LSB nature. However, we assert that our blue edge galaxies as a population seem very similar to LSBs in most respects. Most previously identified LSBs visible on the POSS I lie on the blue edge of POSS I color-magnitude parameter space. The bivariate brightness distribution of blue edge galaxies appears relatively similar to that of known LSBs on the POSS I. Furthermore, the HI properties of our blue edge galaxies exhibit similar $`M_{H𝙸}`$ distributions to LSBs at similar redshifts. If we take into account the relationship between $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ and $`OE`$ (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge), it is clear that our blue edge galaxies exhibit very similar gas mass-to-light ratios as blue LSBs. Thus, despite the fact that low surface brightness was not an explicit selection criterion for identifying the blue edge galaxies, the evidence at hand suggests that our blue edge galaxies share much in common with the LSBs visible on the POSS I. Of course, the relatively high surface brightness limit of the POSS I means LSBs visible in that survey are likely to represent the high surface brightness end of the LSB population. Thus, we would be safer to identify our blue edge galaxies as similar to the high surface brightness end of the LSBs.

## 7 Understanding the blue edge

The fact that LSBs lie on the blue edge of color-magnitude parameter space is not surprising, since LSBs are observed to be very blue (Bothun et al., 1997; Impey and Bothun, 1997). Thus, given our selection criterion for blue edge galaxies it is plausible that we are selecting blue HI-rich LSBs. However, the preponderance of blue LSBs has been questioned by O’Neil and collaborators who recently performed a CCD-based search for LSBs (O’Neil et al., 1997a) and discovered several LSB galaxies with red $`BV`$ colors. O’Neil et al. (1997b) suggest that the observed preponderance of blue LSBs is a selection effect due to the blue sensitivity of photographic plates used in most previous optical LSB searches. Therefore it was surprising that our cross-identification of the 73 OBC galaxies on the POSS I fields which were online in the APS Catalog in August 2000 recovered 58 of them. Furthermore, these OBC galaxies are predominantly on the blue edge of the POSS I color-magnitude space (as seen in Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). Are we truly seeing LSBs with “red” $`BV`$ on the “blue edge?”

### 7.1 Red LSBs on the blue edge?

If we assume, as O’Neil et al. (1997b) do, that the blue sensitivity of photographic plates is a strong selection effect, then a cross-identification of the OBC with the POSS I would preferentially match only the bluest galaxies in the OBC survey. However, a plot of $`BV`$ vs. $`V`$ for OBC galaxies separated into matched and unmatched galaxies shows the APS Catalog does not preferentially match the bluest OBC galaxies (see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgea). While the average $`BV`$ color of the unmatched galaxies is slightly redder ($`BV=0.78\pm 0.01`$) than that of matched galaxies ($`BV=0.82\pm 0.02`$), the $`BV`$ color distribution of the matched galaxies extends both blueward and redward of that of the unmatched galaxies. Instead, it appears the dominant bias in the POSS I is that it doesn’t recover the lowest surface brightness OBC galaxies (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgeb). If we can understand how OBC galaxies with “red” $`BV`$ colors can appear on the blue edge of POSS I color-magnitude parameter space, we may have an explanation for why LSBs appear on the “blue edge.”

A plot of $`OE`$ vs. $`BV`$ shows that these two colors appear to be weakly correlated (with a correlation coefficient of 0.22, see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). In fact, the OBC galaxy with the reddest $`BV`$ has the second most blue $`OE`$ color! This discrepancy between $`OE`$ and $`BV`$ colors for OBC galaxies is especially startling when compared to the behavior of galaxies in the RC3, which show a significant correlation between $`OE`$ and $`BV`$ colors. For 618 RC3 galaxies with $`B`$ and $`V`$ color information cross-identified with the APS catalog (see the “photometry” column of Table 4), we find a correlation coefficient of 0.68 between APS $`OE`$ and RC3 $`BV`$ colors. The radically different photometric behavior of the LSBs from OBC and the HSB galaxies in the RC3 can be understood if we consider the blue and red bandpass behavior separately.

We expect that the blue $`O`$ and $`B`$ magnitudes of galaxies should be correlated because the $`O`$ bandpass covers the entire $`B`$ bandpass and extends a bit blueward. This expected correlation is observed for the 617 higher surface brightness RC3 galaxies with both $`B`$ and $`O`$ measurements available (and has a correlation coefficient of $`r=0.90`$). In contrast to the overlapping blue bandpasses, the $`E`$ bandpass lies about 1300Å redward of $`V`$, centered near the H$`\alpha `$ line at 6562Å. Consequently, any correlation between the $`V`$ and $`E`$ magnitudes might be expected to be weaker. However, we find that $`E`$ and $`V`$ magnitudes for the RC3 are only slightly less well correlated ($`r=0.88`$) than the $`O`$ and $`B`$ bandpasses. What is surprising is that similar investigation of the OBC galaxies shows much weaker correlations between $`O`$ and $`B`$ ($`r=0.66`$) and $`E`$ and $`V`$ ($`r=0.61`$). A direct comparison of the two samples shows that if we fit the relationship for RC3 galaxies $`B`$ versus $`O`$ magnitudes with a linear fit, the fainter and more diffuse OBC galaxies lie at systematically fainter POSS I $`O`$ magnitudes than this fit would predict (See Figures Galaxies on the Blue Edgea). The faintest OBC galaxies appear to have $`O`$ magnitudes 1 to 2 magnitudes fainter than suggested by their $`B`$ magnitudes if we extrapolate the RC3 relationship between these two magnitudes. The situation with the $`E`$ magnitudes is more extreme, with the roughly half of OBC galaxies appearing to be 2 to 3 magnitudes fainter in $`E`$ than predicted based an extrapolation of the RC3 relationship between $`E`$ and $`V`$ Galaxies on the Blue Edgeb). It is the difference in these two effects that results in the OBC galaxies having $`OE`$ colors considerably bluer than their $`BV`$ colors would suggest (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgec).

### 7.2 An Explanation for the blue edge

Since the whole field of LSBs was opened up by Disney’s realization that surface brightness was being generally ignored as a selection effect (Disney, 1976), let us consider the possibility that the blue edge effect is due to the surface brightness limits of the POSS I plates. The APS Catalog is constructed from digital scans of the POSS I performed in threshold densitometry mode where data is kept only for regions with photographic densities greater than 65% the sky density, resulting in a threshold surface brightness limit for objects in the APS catalog slightly deeper than the sky surface brightness on each plate (See Table 1). It has been established by the APS Project that the limiting surface brightness, $`\mu (lim)`$, of the POSS I $`O`$ (blue) plates is typically deeper than that of the $`E`$ (red) plates. This is not an issue when comparing high surface brightness galaxy photometry where the majority of the galaxy’s luminosity comes from HSB regions. However, it is possible for a LSB galaxy with neutral color and mean surface brightness near the plate limit to barely appear on the $`E`$ plate while clearly appearing on the $`O`$ plate due to the deeper surface brightness limits. This will result in a reported bluer $`OE`$ than an otherwise similar HSB galaxy.777In fact, this represents a previously known selection effect, since extremely blue low surface brightness objects will not appear on the $`E`$ plate at all, and thus will not reside in the APS catalog. This suggests that LSBs may be biased to lie on the blue edge of POSS I color-magnitude parameter space simply as a result of the fact that $`\mu _E(lim)<\mu _O(lim)`$ and not necessarily because they are intrinsically blue.

To support this theory, we investigated the differences between the $`O`$ and $`B`$ (and $`E`$ and $`V`$) magnitudes for the OBC galaxies versus $`\mu _B(0)`$, their reported $`B`$ central surface brightness (see Figures Galaxies on the Blue Edgea and Galaxies on the Blue Edgeb). In Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgea we see that the difference between the $`O`$ and $`B`$ magnitudes is mildly affected by the $`\mu _B(0)`$ of the OBC galaxy, with a computed best-fit line of the form

$$OB=7.874(\pm 3.901)+0.383(\pm 0.171)\mu _B(0).$$
(5)
Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgeb shows the corresponding relationship for $`EV`$ is considerably stronger with

$$EV=21.281(\pm 6.079)+0.984(\pm 0.266)\mu _B(0).$$
(6)
The fact that the relationship between these magnitude differences and central surface brightness is steeper for the redder bandpasses ($`E`$ and $`V`$) is simply a reflection of the fact that $`\mu _E(lim)<\mu _O(lim)`$. The net result is that the $`OE`$ colors of LSBs are systematically bluer on the POSS I than they would be on a survey achieving equal surface brightness limits in both red and blue bandpasses.

In passing, we note that the POSS I blue plates (with their deeper surface brightness limits) appear to have a very linear relationship between $`B`$ and $`O`$ up to $`B18.5`$ (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgea), meaning our estimates of the gas mass-to-light ratios of our blue edge galaxies should not be strongly affected by this problem. However, any future attempts to probe for LSBs close to the plate limit may have to compensate for this bias in the $`O`$ magnitudes of low surface brightness objects near the plate limit.

### 7.3 Red LSBs on the POSS I

Given this systematic bias for LSBs to appear blue on the POSS I, what can we say about known LSBs that are observed to be red in $`OE`$? Returning to Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge we notice that there is a substantial population of LSBs that have colors significantly redward of the blue edge boundary (defined in equation 1). An investigation of these very red LSBs shows they in truth are red. First of all, while in almost all cases the mean $`O`$ (blue) surface brightnesses of these galaxies are lower than their mean $`E`$ (red) surface brightnesses, red galaxies exhibit larger differences between the blue and red surface brightnesses just as one would expect (see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgea). Furthermore, if the galaxies are truly red, then we would expect their $`O`$ plate images to be smaller than their $`E`$ plate images. Despite the fact that the $`E`$ plates usually have shallower surface brightness limits than the $`O`$ plates, we confirm that the $`O`$ plate images for the red LSBs are smaller than the $`E`$ plate images (see Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edgeb). These two facts together imply that these red galaxies are indeed red LSBs.

## 8 Conclusions

We have developed a simple criterion for identifying HI-rich galaxy candidates from the POSS I based on their positions in POSS I bivariate color-magnitude parameter space. While the method described here relies on followup visual inspection of candidates to eliminate star–galaxy and star–star blended images, subsequent investigation of the image parameters of the “rejected” shows they consist mainly of images with higher surface brightnesses and smaller second moments, suggesting automation of our selection method is possible. Such automation should allow us to identify fainter and smaller blue edge candidates than is practical with visual inspection. We observed 31 of our 71 blue edge candidates and detected 19 (61%) in HI (15 with high signal-to-noise).

The blue edge galaxies we detect in HI are very distinct from “normal” HSB galaxies in both their optical and HI properties. We have concluded that our blue edge galaxies are very similar to LSBs in these properties, based on cross-identification of known LSBs with the POSS I. The evidence supporting this tentative identification of blue edge galaxies as LSBs includes several key points:

1. Cross-identification of known LSBs with the POSS I shows that over 68% of them lie blueward of the blue edge boundary (defined in equation 1). While this certainly doesn’t mean blue edge galaxies need be LSBs, it suggests that many LSBs lie on the blue edge of POSS I color-magnitude parameter space.
2. The bivariate brightness distributions of known LSBs and our blue edge galaxies are similar, with both populations lying at lower mean surface brightness than HSBs drawn from the ZCAT (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge).
3. The HI masses of blue edge galaxies are typically lower and their gas mass-to-light ratios higher than those of luminous HSB galaxies (drawn from the RC3). We find that their gas masses are very similar to those of LSBs at the same redshift, although their gas-mass-to-light ratios do not extend to the highest values seen for LSBs. If we take into account the relationship between $`OE`$ color and $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ seen in Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge, we see that blue galaxies appear to have a more limited range of gas mass-to-light ratios than redder galaxies, and blue LSBs exhibit a similar range of $`M_{H𝙸}/L_O`$ as our blue edge galaxies.
4. The two-horned profiles seen for many of our blue edge galaxies are typical of galaxies with flat rotation curves. Such flat rotation curves are generally associated with large spirals and LSBs (Verheijen and Sancisi, 2001). This combined with their typical HI mass of $`\mathrm{log}(M_{H𝙸})9.4`$ suggests these are not dwarf galaxies, but rather disk systems.

Based on these pieces of evidence, we believe these blue edge galaxies are likely to be LSBs on the high surface brightness end of that population (so as to be visible on the POSS I). They are likely to be disk systems and not the smaller dwarf galaxies commonly associated with LSBs. This suggests our “blue edge” criteria selects the same type of galaxies a blind radio survey (Dickey, 1997) or wide-field optical survey (Impey and Bothun, 1997; O’Neil et al., 1997a) for HI-rich LSBs would select.

While it has been noted that LSBs are among the bluest (non-starbursting) galaxies known (Impey and Bothun, 1997), this alone does not appear to be the explanation for why LSBs lie preferentially on the blue edge of the POSS I color-magnitude diagram. Specifically, it cannot explain why the “red” (in $`BV`$) LSBs from O’Neil et al. (1997a) can be blue in $`OE`$ (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge). We demonstrate that this is most likely the result of differing surface brightness limits on the POSS I $`O`$ (blue) versus $`E`$ (red) plates, which make low surface brightness galaxies appear systematically bluer. This does not mean LSBs are not truly “blue,” it simply means that when working near the limiting surface brightness of a survey, the integrated fluxes must be measured to equal isophotes in all bandpasses in order to assure the colors are not systematically biased. This bias for low surface brightness objects to appear blue on the POSS I means that the blue edge is an excellent filter for sifting out LSBs and similar objects from the large number of galaxies in the field.

This model for why LSBs lie on the blue edge of the POSS I leads to an important question” just what regions of these LSBs are detected on the POSS I plates? Answering this question will require detailed comparison of POSS I images with deep CCD images. The POSS I most likely only detects the highest surface brightness regions of any LSB. This leads to another interpretation of our blue edge galaxies: they could be in a class with NGC 2915, a galaxy which has been identified as a blue compact dwarf but has the HI properties of a “dark” spiral galaxy (Meurer et al., 1996). Only observations of blue compact dwarfs deeper than the POSS I plate limits can reveal if they have extremely low surface brightness disks surrounding the detected POSS I images, presumably current star forming regions in an otherwise extremely low surface brightness galaxy.

Finally, we see no simple mechanism to make low surface brightness galaxies appear systematically redder on the POSS I versus CCD observations. We have shown that known LSBs with red $`OE`$ colors tend to appear smaller on the $`O`$ plate and have lower $`O`$ mean surface brightnesses than blue LSBs (Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge), indicating that these galaxies are indeed red. Employing simulations of the ISM of LSBs, Gerritsen and de Blok (1999) were able to reproduce the optical properties of LSBs only when assuming LSBs have a sporadic star formation rate. de Blok’s simulations suggest that roughly 80% of LSBs have some current star formation with young, luminous stars dominating the luminosity and leading to their observed blue colors. The remaining quiescent LSBs should appear red ($`BV>1`$ or approximately $`OE>0.7`$) as they would only have an older stellar population. And while we know the POSS I colors of LSBs are biased to be systematically blue, an examination of Figure Galaxies on the Blue Edge shows that approximately 50% of all POSS I galaxies have $`OE>0.7`$, while only $`10\%`$ of LSBs on the POSS I do. These redder LSBs could be currently in a quiescent stage in their evolution and as such represent interesting candidates for followup if we want to search for LSBs with old stellar populations as predicted by Gerritsen and de Blok (1999).

We would like to thank Roberta Humphreys and Evan Skillman for discussions of potential astrophysical causes for the “blue edge.” Thanks to Steve Odewahn for an illuminating conversation on observational systematics in the POSS I and to the anonymous referee for his or her helpful suggestions. JEC thanks the Department of Physics, Astronomy, and Engineering Science at Saint Cloud State University who provided him with support when some of this research was conducted and Bruce Partridge for reviewing a late draft of this paper. We express our gratitude to Karen O’Neil and Jo Ann Eder for providing electronic versions of the data from their respective low surface brightness galaxy catalogs. We would like to thank telescope operators Miguel Boggiano, Willie Portalatin, Pedro Torres, and Norberto Despiau for their good humor and help with observing (and especially Norberto for his “lucky coffee”). JEC would like to thank Chris Salter, Tapasi Ghosh, Jo Ann Eder, and Phil Perillat for helping make his first radio observing experience excellent, both professionally and personally. Travel was sponsored by the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center and the University of Minnesota Graduate School. This research was financially supported by the University of Minnesota and NSF grants AST 97-32695 and AST 00-71192. This research has made use of the APS Catalog of the POSS I, which is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the University of Minnesota. The APS databases can be accessed at http://aps.umn.edu/ on the World Wide Web. We acknowledge the use of NASA’s SkyView facility (http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov) located at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.