English

The Complete Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (CS$^4$G)

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2025-05-07 v1

Abstract

The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4^4G), together with its Early Type Galaxy (ETG) extension, stand as the most extensive dataset of deep, uniform mid-infrared (mid-IR; 3.6 and 4.5μ\,\mum) imaging for a sample of 28172817 nearby (d<40d<40 \,Mpc) galaxies. However, the velocity criterion used to select the original sample results in an additional 422 galaxies without HI detection that ought to have been included in the S4^4G on the basis of their optical recession velocities. In order to create a complete magnitude-, size- and volume-limited sample of nearby galaxies, we collect 3.6μ3.6\,\mum and ii-band images using archival data from different surveys and complement it with new observations for the missing galaxies. We denote the sample of these additional galaxies as Disc Galaxy (DG) extension. We present the Complete Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (CS4^4G), encompassing a sample of 32393239 galaxies with consistent imaging, surface brightness profiles, photometric parameters, and revised morphological classification. Following the original strategy of the S4^4G survey, we produce masks, surface brightness profiles, and curves of growth using masked 3.6μ3.6\,\mum and ii-band images. From these profiles, we derive the integrated quantities: total magnitude, stellar mass, concentration parameter, and galaxy size, converting to 3.6μ3.6\,\mum. We re-measure these parameters also for the S4^4G and ETG to create a homogenous sample. We present new morphological revised TT-types, and we showcase mid-IR scaling relations for the photometric parameters. We complete the S4^4G sample by incorporating 422 galaxies. The CS4^4G includes at least 99.94\% of the complete sample of nearby galaxies, meeting the original selection criteria, and it will enable a wide set of investigations into galaxy structure and evolution.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.09680,
  title  = {The Complete Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (CS$^4$G)},
  author = {P. M. Sánchez-Alarcón and H. Salo and J. H. Knapen and S. Comerón and J. Román and A. E. Watkins and R. J. Buta and S. Laine and J. M. Falcón-Ramírez and M. Anetjärvi and E. Athanassoula and A. Bosma and D. A. Gadotti and J. L. Hinz and L. C. Ho and B. W. Holwerda and J. Janz and T. Kim and J. Koda and J. Laine and E. Laurikainen and B. F. Madore and K. Menéndez-Delmestre and R. F. Peletier and M. Querejeta and A. Ruokanen and K. Sheth and D. Zaritsky},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.09680},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

22 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, 3 appendices. Accepted for publication in A&A