Relationships between Hi Gas Mass, Stellar Mass, and the Star Formation Rate of HICAT+WISE (H i-WISE) Galaxies

Abstract

We have measured the relationships between H i mass, stellar mass, and star formation rate using the H i Parkes All-Sky Survey Catalog (HICAT) and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer ( WISE ). Of the 3513 HICAT sources, we find 3.4 μ m counterparts for 2896 sources (80%), and provide new WISE -matched aperture photometry for these galaxies. For our principal sample of spiral galaxies with W 1 ≤ 10 mag and z  ≤ 0.01, we identify H i detections for 93% of the sample. We measure lower H i –stellar mass relationships for H i- selected samples that do not include spiral galaxies with little H i gas. Our observations of the spiral sample show that H i mass increases with stellar mass with a power-law index of 0.35; however, this value is dependent on T-type, which affects both the median and the dispersion of H i mass. We also observe an upper limit on the H i gas fraction, which is consistent with a halo spin parameter model. We measure the star formation efficiency of spiral galaxies to be constant at 10 −9.57 yr −1  ± 0.4 dex for 2.5 orders of magnitude in stellar mass, despite the higher stellar mass spiral showing evidence of quenched star formation.