Hoag object evidence_for_cold_accretion

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 1–?? (0000) Printed 25 October 2011 (MN L TEX style file v2.2)
A

Hoag’s Object: Evidence for Cold Accretion onto an
Elliptical Galaxy
arXiv:1108.3079v2 [astro-ph.CO] 24 Oct 2011

Ido Finkelman1⋆, Alexei Moiseev2, Noah Brosch1, Ivan Katkov3
1The Wise Observatory and the School of Physics and Astronomy, the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences,
Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
2 Special Astrophysical Observatory, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhniy Arkhyz, Karachai-Cherkessian Republic, 357147, Russia
3 Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, 13 Universitetski prospect, 119992, Moscow, Russia

Accepted 2011 August 8. Received 2011 August 7; in original form 2011 June 14

ABSTRACT
We present new photometric and spectroscopic observations of the famous Hoag’s Ob-
ject, a peculiar ring galaxy with a central roundish core. The nature of Hoag’s Object
is still under controversial discussion. Previous studies demonstrated that a major ac-
cretion event that took place at least 2-3 Gyr ago can account for the observational
evidence. However, the role of internal nonlinear mechanisms in forming the outer ring
was not yet completely ruled out.
The observations reported here consist of WFPC2 optical data retrieved from
the Hubble Space Telescope archive as well as long-slit and 3D spectroscopic data
obtained at the Russian BTA 6-m telescope. These new data, together with HI and
optical information from the literature, are used to demonstrate that Hoag’s Object
is a relatively isolated system surrounded by a luminous quasi-spiral pattern and a
massive, low-density HI disc. The main stellar body is an old, mildly triaxial elliptical
galaxy with very high angular momentum.
We review previous formation scenarios of Hoag’s Object in light of the new data
and conclude that the peculiar morphology could not represent a late phase in barred
early-type galaxies evolution. In addition, no observational evidence supports late
merging events in the evolution of the galaxy, although further tests are required before
safely dismissing this idea. Combining all the information we propose a new scenario
where the elliptical core formed in the early Universe with the HI disc forming shortly
after the core by prolonged ‘cold’ accretion of primordial gas from the intergalactic
medium.
The low gas density does not allow intense star formation to occur everywhere in
the disc, but only along a tightly wound spiral pattern of enhanced density induced
by the triaxial gravitational potential. According to this view, the physical mechanism
that forms rings in Hoag-like galaxies is closely linked with that in some non-barred
disc galaxies, although the formation and evolution of both classes of galaxies are
clearly distinct. Whether or not this unique evolutionary track is related with the
galaxy residing in a underdensed environment remains to be solved. A detailed HI
mapping of Hoag’s Object and its environment is required to test our hypothesis and
to examine the nature of the HI disc.
Key words: galaxies: peculiar - galaxies: individual: Hoag’s Object - galaxies: pho-
tometry; galaxies: kinematics and dynamics

1 INTRODUCTION years. Examining the galaxy image Arthur Hoag described
this unique structure as ‘a perfect halo surrounds a diffuse
Hoag’s Object (Hoag 1950) has been fascinating profes-
central image’ and suggested that ‘a proper identification
sionals and non-professionals astronomers for more than 60
would be a worthwhile short-term project’. However, it was
only years later that O’Connell, Scargle & Sargent (1974)
attempted a spectroscopic follow up of the object, The au-
⋆ E-mail: ido@wise.tau.ac.il (IF); moisav@gmail.com (AM); thors detected and measured absorption lines of the core but
noah@wise.tau.ac.il (NB); katkov.igor@gmail.com (IK)

2 Ido Finkelman et al.
could not trace the emission from the faint ring. Schweizer distance to the galaxy of 175.5 Mpc, which corresponds to
et al. (1987) confirmed by optical spectroscopy and radio ob- a scale of 851 pc arcsec−1 .
servations that the core and the ring have almost identical The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 gives a de-
recession velocities, implying that they are physically asso- scription of the observations and data reduction; we study
ciated and at rest relative to each other. These observations the object’s observed properties in Section 3 and discuss its
also established the extragalactic nature of the galaxy while structure in Section 4. In Section 5 we review the old forma-
ruling out a previous hypothesis that the ring was produced tion hypotheses and suggest our own interpretation of the
by gravitational lensing of a background galaxy (Hoag 1950; observational evidence. Our conclusions are summarized in
O’Connell et al. 1974). Section 6.
For many years the elusive nature of Hoag’s Object and
its apparent peculiarity among other galaxies were consid-
ered to be almost ‘pathological’. O’Connell, Scargle & Sar- 2 OBSERVATIONS AND DATA REDUCTION
gent (1974) ruled out the possibility that absorption or scat-
tering by dust particles surrounding the galaxy are respon- 2.1 HST observations
sible for the ring appearance. Alternatively, they suggested Hoag’s Object was observed with the HST/WFPC2 for 6
that the ring could be the result of an encounter with a orbits on June 9 2001 under the Hubble Heritage Project.
companion or a passing galaxy. The formation of the ring Long exposures were taken in the following filters: F 450W ,
through galaxy-galaxy interaction was further studied by F 606W , and F 814W with total exposures of 5×1300, 4×500
Schweizer et al. (1987) who found the low relative velocity and 5 × 1000 s, respectively. The data used in this study
between the core and the ring to be highly unlikely for a were taken from the WF3 camera, with an image scale of
collisional ring galaxy. The authors concluded that Hoag’s 0.1 arcsec pixel−1 . The data were processed by the Space
Object formed by mass transfer or merger during a major Telescope Science Institute (STScI) pipeline and individual
accretion event through a mechanism similar to that form- exposures in each filter were combined using the CRREJ
ing polar ring galaxies. The authors also pointed out that task in IRAF1 for cosmic-ray recognition and rejection.
Hoag’s Object itself might eventually turned out to be an E0 To convert the measured instrumental magnitudes to
galaxy with a polar ring. However, several issues remained to the Vega photometric system we adopted the photometric
be explained in the Schweizer et al. (1987) scenario, such as zero points of 22.016 and 21.659 mag for the F 450W and
the alignment of bright knots along ‘a narrower ring which F 814W bands, respectively, as given in the WFPC2 photo-
appears off-centre from the main ring’. metric cookbook. The F 450W and F 814W filters are equiv-
A different scenario for the formation of the ring was alent to the Johnson-Cousins B and I magnitudes, but to
put forward by Brosch (1985) in the context of weak non- allow optimal comparison with previous ground-based ob-
axisymmetric internal perturbations. Brosch suggested that servations we transformed our magnitudes to the ‘standard’
Hoag’s Object represents a transient stage in the evolution B- and I-bands using the formulae given by Matthews et
of a barred galaxy which went through a dramatic bar in- al. (1999). Below we shall refer to the transformed F 450W
stability. In this view, the bar in a galactic disc drives part as ‘B’ and F 814W as ‘I’. The HST colour image of Hoag’s
of the gas into an outer ring (Kormendy & Kennicutt 2004) Object, displayed in the left panel of Fig. 1, was obtained
while triggering intense star formation in the gas-rich disc. from the STScI Web site and is part of the Hubble Heritage
The dissolved bar is expected to leave an elongated core Team collection.
with discy features. However, Hoag’s Object appears to be
a pure round spheroid with no trace of a disc and is there-
fore difficult to understand in the context of orbit resonance 2.2 BTA Observations
theory.
This subsection details the observations made with the 6-
Following its discovery, Hoag’s Object became the pro-
m large altazimuthal telescope (BTA) of the Special Astro-
totype of a class of galaxies with bright external rings which
appear detached from an inner round core, and several stud- physical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences
(SAO RAS). The data were obtained with the multi-mode
ies aimed to determine their relative frequency in the Uni-
focal reducer SCORPIO (Afanasiev & Moiseev 2005) and
verse (e.g., Schweizer et al. 1987; Wakamatsu 1990). These
studies agreed that most Hoag-like objects have elongated the integral-field Multi-Pupil Fiber Spectrograph (MPFS;
cores or faint bars, and that they differ in some distinct way Afanasiev, Dodonov & Moiseev 2001) at the prime focus of
the BTA. The MPFS was used to construct a detailed pic-
from Hoag’s Object. Genuine Hoag-like objects are therefore
unique and rare galaxies even at present (see also Finkelman ture of the stellar kinematics in the central region of the
& Brosch 2011). galaxy. SCORPIO allows various spectroscopic and photo-
metric observations to be performed within a 6 arcmin field
High resolution images of Hoag’s Object, obtained with
of view. It was operated in a long-slit spectroscopic (LSS)
the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/WFPC2 as part of the
mode to study the large-scale kinematics and stellar pop-
heritage program, now provide an opportunity to view the
ulation properties, and in a mode of scanning Fabry-P´rot
e
spectacular structure of the galaxy in unprecedented detail.
interferometer (FPI) to study the ionized gas kinematics in
The photometric observations, together with a detailed kine-
matic study performed with the Russian 6-m telescope, pro-
vide new clues to the formation and evolution of this pe- 1 IRAF is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Obser-
culiar galaxy. We shall assume throughout the paper stan- vatories (NOAO), which is operated by the Association of Uni-
dard cosmology with H0 =73 km s−1 Mpc−1 , Ωm = 0.27 and versities, Inc. (AURA) under co-operative agreement with the
ΩΛ = 0.73. Following Springob et al. (2005), we adopt the National Science Foundation

Hoag’s Object Revisited 3

Figure 1. Left: Hubble Heritage WFPC2 colour image of Hoag’s Object (Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team).
Right: The FPI Hα data drawn as contours over the greyscale HST F 606W image.

the outer ring. In addition, a deep SCORPIO exposure was 2.2.2 Long-slit spectroscopy
taken in the Cousins R-band to search for faint morpholog-
ical peculiarities and low-luminosity tidal features around
We obtained SCORPIO/LSS data for three positions of the
the galaxy. The detectors used in 2009 and 2010 were a
slit using different grisms to provide a wide spectral cover
CCD EEV42-40 (2048 × 2048 pixels) and a CCD EEV42-90
and different resolutions. The locations of the entrance slits
(4612 × 2048 pixels), correspondingly. The observation log
are plotted in Fig. 2 and the instrumental setup is described
is presented in Table 1.
in Table 1. The slit width was 1 arscec and the spatial sam-
pling was 0.35 arcsec pixel−1 .

The position angles (PAs, measured counterclockwise
2.2.1 MPFS integral field spectroscopy from the north) of the slit were chosen at first to lie along
the apparent major axes of the inner spheroid and of the
The integral-field spectrograph MPFS takes simultaneous ring as found by Schweizer et al. (1987), 83◦ and 19◦ , re-
spectra of 256 spatial elements arranged in a square by a spectively. The spectral range covered the Hα emission line
16 × 16 arcsec2 lenslet array, with a scale of 1 arcsec per of the ionized gas and several stellar population absorption
spaxel. An optical fiber is located behind each lens with its features (e.g., Ca I, Fe).
other end packed into the spectrograph slit. The sky back-
ground spectrum was simultaneously taken with 17 addi- However, an analysis of the spectroscopic data showed
tional fibers located 4 arcmin away from the object. The that the kinematics major axes of both the core and the ring
wavelength interval included absorption features of the old coincide and lie at about 45◦ , in contrast to the Schweizer
stellar population around the Mg I triplet. The preliminary et al. (1987) results. Observations during May 2009 aimed
data reduction yields a ‘data cube’, where each fiber/pixel to obtain deep exposures along the true kinematic axis were
in the 16 × 16 arcsec2 field of view is a spectrum (Moi- conducted under strong cirrus clouds and bad weather con-
seev et al. 2004). To construct the stellar velocity field, we ditions. We estimate the total effective exposure time to be
use the cross-correlation technique adapted for MPFS data ∼ 20 min. Finally, the spectra along PA∼45◦ were obtained
(Moiseev 2001). Spectra of K-type stars obtained during the also in August 2009 in a spectral range covering the ionized
same night as Hoag’s Object were used as templates for the gas emission lines (e.g., Hβ, [OIII]) and the high-contrast
cross-correlation. stellar absorptions (e.g., Mg I, Fe). Fig. 3 shows the radial
The MPFS throughput is not very efficient compared distributions of the line-of-sight velocities and velocity dis-
to SCORPIO, thus the object appears relatively weak. The persion along the different slit positions.
MPFS diagonal field of view is about 22 arcsec which means
that the ring is farther away and cannot be sampled. There- The slit spectra were reduced and calibrated using the
fore, the stellar line-of-sight velocity and velocity dispersion IDL-based software, developed at the SAO RAS. The pa-
maps could be derived only for the central core of Hoag’s rameters of the emission lines (FWHM, flux, velocity) were
Object, which allows determining its kinematic axis. calculated using a single-Gaussian fitting.


Figure 2. Kinematic information for Hoag’s Object. Upper panels: WFPC2 F 606W image (upper left) and Hα intensity map (upper
right). Slit orientations and actual slit widths for the three position angles used for spectroscopy are also indicated, as well as the MPFS
field of view. Lower panels: The line-of-sight velocity field (lower left) and velocity dispersion field (lower right) of Hoag’s Object from
FPI and MPFS observations.

2.2.3 Scanning Fabry-P´rot Interferometer
e detector was operated in on-chip binned 4 × 4 pixel mode
to reduce readout time and match the resultant pixel to the
seeing size. The final image scale and field of view were 0.7
The last set of spectroscopic observations was performed
arcsec per pixel and 6.1 × 6.1 arcmin2 , respectively. We col-
with the scanning FPI mounted on the SCORPIO focal
lected 32 successive interferograms of the object with differ-
reducer. To cover the spectral range in the region of the
ent spacings of the FPI plates. A detailed description of the
redshifted Hα line we used a narrow-band (FWHM=20˚) A
technique of observations and data reduction within IDL-
filter. The free spectral interval between the neighbouring
based software can be found in Moiseev (2002) and Moiseev
interference orders was 31˚ (1420 km s−1 ). The FPI res-
A
& Egorov (2008). Following the primary data reduction, the
olution, defined as the FWHM of the instrumental profile,
frames were combined into a data cube where each pixel in
was about 3.4˚ (150 km s−1 ) for a 0.97-˚ sampling. The
A A


Table 1. Observation log.

Date Instrument PA Exposure Spectral Spectral seeing
(◦ ) time (s) range (˚)
A resolution (˚)
A (arcsec)

27.04.2009 MPFS 0 6000 4750 − 6230 3.5 2
05.04.2009 SCORPIO/LS 19 7200 6100 − 7050 2.5 1.5
05.04.2009 SCORPIO/LS 83 3300 6100 − 7050 2.5 1.5
21.05.2009 SCORPIO/LS 45 4800 4830 − 5600 2.2 2
14.08.2009 SCORPIO/LS 45 6000 4050 − 5830 5 1.3
20.03.2010 SCORPIO/FPI 9600 Hα 3.4 1.7
23.03.2010 SCORPIO/IM 1920 R 1.4

Figure 3. The radial distributions of the line-of-sight velocities (systematic velocity was subtracted) and velocity dispersion along
different slit positions. The different symbols show the long-slit spectra measurements of stars and ionized gas; the deepest spectrum
was taken along PA=45◦ in August 2009. The solid line represents the pseudo-slit cross-sections taken from the FPI velocity field and
velocity dispersion maps.

the 512 × 512 field contains a 32-channel spectrum centred 2.2.4 Imaging
on the Hα emission line. The final angular resolution after
optimal smoothing is about 2.1 arcsec. We obtained deep exposures of the galaxy with SCORPIO in
the Cousins R band with a sampling of 0.351 arcsec pixel−1
Images of the galaxy in the Hα emission line and in the in the 6 arcmin field of view. The exposures were then
F 606W filter are shown in the right panel of Fig. 1 and in aligned and combined into one single 32 min image which
the upper panels of Fig. 2. The line-of-sight velocity field is presented in Fig. 4. Non-photometric weather conditions
and velocity dispersion field of the ionized gas were mapped prevented the use of standard stars to calibrate fluxes. To
using Gaussian fitting of the emission-line profiles and are perform a coarse calibration we also observed Hoag’s Object
presented along with the MPFS velocity maps in the lower with the Wise Observatory (WO) 1-m telescope. The WO R-
panels of Fig. 2. These results are consistent with the radial band observations allowed estimating the zero-point magni-
velocity measurements along the different slit positions, as tude of the SCORPIO image with an accuracy of ∼0.1 mag.
demonstrated in Fig. 3. The depth of the surface brightness measurements reaches

shape typical of rotating discs with a width of 239 km s−1 .
The estimated HI mass of 8.2 × 109 M⊙ is about 4 times
3 higher than the upper limit estimated by Brosch (1985).
Since the synthesized beam size of the WSRT observations
2
was about 12 arcsec, while that of the Arecibo telescope was
about 3.3 arcmin, the apparent discrepancy between the re-
sults could be explained if the neutral hydrogen is diffusely
1 distributed in a disc which extends beyond the stellar core.
∆δ (arcmin)

Another hint for the extended HI structure of Hoag’s
0
Object is provided by the Hoag-type galaxy UGC 4599
which contains a similar amount of HI gas spread over a
∼100 kpc disc. This implies that genuine Hoag-type galax-
−1 ies belongs to a class of galaxies with massive, extended HI
discs. These structures can extend up to ∼200 kpc and are
−2
typically characterized by a low surface density 2 M⊙ pc−2
(Sadler, Oosterloo & Morganti 2002).
Hoag’s Object was included in a search for CO emission
−3 in ring galaxies by Horellou et al. (1995). The authors could
3 2 1 0 −1 −2 −3 not detect CO in Hoag’s Object and put an upper limit of
∆α (arcmin) 7×108 M⊙ on the H2 mass. They suggested that most of the
molecular cloud would be in the ring and therefore difficult
Figure 4. R-band negative image of Hoag’s Object obtained with to detect.
the BTA 6-m telescope. The limiting surface brightness reaches
µR ≈ 27.3 mag arcsec2 .
3.3 Surface photometry using the HST
µR ≈ 27.3 mag arcsec−2 , significantly deeper than other The HST imaging data were used to provide the morpho-
known images of Hoag’s Object. logical parameters, integrated magnitudes and colours of the
To calibrate the FPI Hα emission flux we obtained central core and of the ring of Hoag’s Object. In order to ac-
with SCORPIO a 900-s exposure with a narrow-band curately measure the light of the galaxy, the following tech-
(FWHM=20˚) filter centred on the emission line and a 240-s
A nique for the determination of the sky background was used.
exposure with an ‘off-line’ narrow-band (FWHM=50˚) fil-
A For each filter we measured fluxes within a series of concen-
ter. The calibration was performed by observing the spec- tric ring-shaped apertures of 2 pixel width (the point spread
trophotometric standard star BD+33d2642 at a similar air- function FWHM) around the object centre. The mean flux
mass. of each annulus was then plotted against the radius, which
allowed estimating the sky background at the location where
the plot decreased to a nearly constant value.
3 RESULTS To separate the central core and ring, we used the
3.1 Environment F 450W and F 814W images to draw isophotes of the galaxy.
This was done by measuring the mean surface brightness of
Hoag’s Object does not lie within the boundary of a rec- isophotes using the ELLIPSE task in IRAF by fitting the PA
ognized cluster of galaxies (O’Connell, Scargle & Sargent and ellipticity, but keeping the centre fixed. Prominent point
1974). We checked the neighbourhood of Hoag’s Object by sources were masked out to ensure their exclusion from the
searching the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) isophote fit. Due to the low surface brightness of the interme-
for nearby galaxies with known redshift. We found that the diate region between the core and the ring, and since the ring
nearest galaxy, CGCG 135-050 (a member of a compact exhibits a knotty and non-uniform structure, we restricted
group), lies at a linear distance of about 3 Mpc from Hoag’s the ellipse isophote fit procedure to the luminous core only.
Object, characterizing Hoag’s Object as a relatively isolated The ellipticity of the core increases smoothly from ∼0.01 at
galaxy (see Spector & Brosch 2010). the centre to ∼0.15 at r = 12 arcsec, whereas the PA profile
decreases from ∼75◦ to ∼45◦ and the isophotal shape pa-
rameter (a4 /a, see e.g., Milvang-Jensen & Jorgensen 1999)
3.2 Gas content
profile lies very close to 0. The fitting isophotal parameters
The gas content of Hoag’s Object was investigated in several were fed into the BMODEL task to create a model of the
studies. Brosch (1985) observed the galaxy with the West- core, which was then subtracted from the actual image to
erbrock Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) but could not produce the residual image shown in Fig. 5. The figure also
detect any significant line emission at the position of Hoag’s presents the radial profiles of the ellipticity, PA and a4 /a
Object or elsewhere in the HI maps. Brosch concluded that derived from the ellipse fitting procedure.
the total neutral hydrogen content of this object is less than To examine the structure of the core we fitted the B-
2.3 × 109 M⊙ . However, observing with the Arecibo 305-m band surface brightness profile with a two component model
telescope, Schweizer et al. (1987) found explicit evidence for consisting of an exponential disc and a S´rsic bulge. Our
e
the presence of a massive HI content. The authors reported least-squares algorithm indicates that the surface brightness
1
that the 21-cm emission line profile exhibits a two-horned profile can be well-fitted by the single ‘r n ’ component over

30
r, arcsec
0.5 1 2 5 10
17
20
18
19
10 20
∆δ, arcsec

21

B
µ
22
0
23
24
−10
25
26
−20
−0.1

B
∆µ
0
−30
30 20 10 0 −10 −20 −30 0.1
∆α, arcsec
2.8 1/4
R [arcsec]
2.6
B−I
2.4
2.2
90
0.5 1 1.5
1/4 1/4
r , arcsec
PA

60

30 Figure 6. Surface B-magnitude and colour profiles derived by
fitting ellipses to the isophotes of the core. The straight solid line
R[arcsec] 1
0.15 on the plots vs. r 4 represents the best-fit to the de Vaucouleurs
light profile.
0.1
e

0.05

16
0

R[arcsec]
0.02
18
a4/a

0
20
−0.02
22
B

0 3 6 9 12
µ

r, arcsec 24

Figure 5. The core of Hoag’s Object. Top: Residual image of 26
Hoag’s Object. This image was produced by fitting ellipses to the
core and subtracting the model from the combined F 450W image. 28
The core shows no underlying structure. Bottom: The geometrical
properties of the core derived by isophotal ellipse fitting.
30
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
r, arcsec
more than ∼8 mag range. The fit yields a S´rsic index, effec-
e
tive radius and effective surface magnitude of n = 3.9 ± 0.2,
Figure 7. Azimuthally averaged luminosity profile of Hoag’s Ob-
re = 2.8 ± 0.1 arcsec (=2.5 ± 0.1 kpc) and µB ∼ 22.6 ± 0.5 1
ject. The dashed line represents an extrapolation of the r 4 light
mag arcsec−2 . The fit values are consistent with the de Vau-
profile to the outer parts of the galaxy. The dashed line represents
couleurs light distribution found by Schweizer et al. (1987). the 3-σ background noise level.
We plot in Fig. 6 the isophotal surface magnitude and colour
along the core as measured by the ellipse fitting procedure.
1
As shown in the figure, the de Vaucouleurs ‘r 4 ’-law, repre-
sented by a solid line, fits well the light profile with slight
deviations of less than 0.1 mag.

To investigate the light profile outwards of the core we The central core spectra do not show any emission lines,
derived an azimuthally averaged luminosity profile (AALP). and most emission lines in the ring spectra are very weak
This was done by measuring the intensity within circular or undetectable. In fact, only the Balmer emission lines, Hα
apertures centred on the host galaxy photocentre, with radii and Hβ, could be detected in the ‘red’ (∼6100-7050˚) and A
increasing outwards using ELLIPSE. Since the ellipticity pa- ‘green’ (∼4830-5600˚) spectral ranges, respectively. There-
A
rameter in ELLIPSE cannot be pre-fixed to zero, light pro- fore, we were unable to measure the radial distribution of
files are obtained for two orthogonal PAs with minimal el- chemical abundance and ionization properties along the ion-
lipticity and their average values are adopted for the AALP. ized gas ring, but only to estimate its kinematic parameters.
The AALP, shown in Fig. 7, shows a clear distinction be- Instead, the stellar properties and metallicities were derived
tween the core and the ring. The core luminosity decreases from the integrated spectrum of the ring.
smoothly from the centre outwards to its faintest level of Since the ‘red’ spectral range contains relatively low-
µB = 26.0 mag arcsec−2 at a radius of r = 13.1 arcsec. contrast stellar absorptions, we rely on the ‘green’ domain
The total luminosity of the core is mB = 16.98 ± 0.01 and spectra (taken just along the true kinematic axis) for study-
mI = 14.47±0.01. Further away the surface brightness peaks ing the stellar properties. To fit the data we use most of the
at a radius of r = 19.1 arcsec with µB = 24.6 mag arcsec−2 , absorption lines in the spectral range, including Mg I and
although the surface brightness of the ring is rather flat in Fe (but not Hβ). Representative spectra of the core and the
the range r ≃ 17.0 arcsec to r ≃ 21.5 arcsec, where it varies ring and their best-fit models are presented in Fig. 9. Ra-
by ∼0.1 mag arcsec−2 . The AALP eventually decreases be- dial distributions of the stellar age and the metallicity are
low µB ∼ 27.0 mag arcsec−2 at a radius of r ≃ 29.0 arcsec, presented in Fig. 10. The errors of the obtained parameters
where it drops below the 3-σ background noise and the cir- were estimated by least square minimization.
cular aperture approaches the CCD edges. The ring does As shown by these figures, the spectrum of the central
not show a sharp outer boundary, and its total luminosity core is well-matched by a single 10 Gyr old stellar popula-
measured out to r = 29 arcsec is mB = 16.94 ± 0.01 and tion. The spectral analysis of the ring indicates the presence
mI = 15.25 ± 0.01. of a ∼2 Gyr old stellar population. However, the true light-
To produce a significantly deeper optical image than the weighted mean age of stars in the ring is likely considerably
individual HST images, the F 450W -, F 606W - and F 814W - smaller than our estimate given that there are clear signa-
band images were co-added. Although the resultant image tures of ongoing star formation in the ring, and considering
cannot be adequately flux-calibrated, it is useful to exam- that absorption features are not very useful in constrain-
ine the morphology of the galaxy. To enhance fine struc- ing the age of very young stars. As can be seen clearly in
tures along the ring we created a model for the AALP of Fig. 1, where we draw Hα contours over the greyscale HST
the galaxy using the ELLIPSE and BMODEL tasks and image, the ring is dotted with tens of blue massive star clus-
subtracted the model image from the original image. The ters which spatially coincide with compact Hα structures.
resultant image, presented in the left panel of Fig. 8, shows To estimate the star formation rate from our data, the Hα
a projected shape of an inner ring and an outer quasi-spiral map has been calibrated into physical units by measuring
structure. The tight spiral pattern can also be interpreted the intensity within circular profiles extracted from the FPI
as a helix-like structure wound around the central body pro- map and the calibrated Hα continuum-subtracted direct im-
jected on the plane of the sky. This pattern is well-seen also age. The total Hα flux within the ring of Hoag’s Object is
in the sharped-masked image on the right panel of Fig. 8 (2.1 ± 0.2) × 10−14 erg s−1 cm−2 which corresponds to a
obtained by subtracting the median filtered image from the total luminosity of (7.7 ± 0.8) × 1040 erg s−1 .
original deep BTA image. Unfortunately, we cannot fit the spectrum of the contin-
uum light of the ring with more complicated stellar popula-
tion models due to its low quality. A detailed imaging study
3.4 Stellar population
of individual knots is also problematic due to the significant
To study the stellar population of Hoag’s Object we fit- difference in spatial resolution between the HST and Hα im-
ted the obtained LSS spectra with spectra of model stel- ages. Alternatively, the photometry of the ring can be used
lar populations. To produce the model spectra we used the to recover its stellar properties by modeling the continuum
PEGASE.HR high-resolution spectra which were computed light and the blue star clusters as two distinct stellar popula-
from the ELODIE 3.1 high resolution stellar spectra library tions. For simplicity, we consider a mixed stellar population
for various ages and metallicities of a single-age stellar pop- formed in two instantaneous bursts and use the stellar pop-
ulation (SSP), assuming a Salpeter (1955) mass function. ulation synthesis models of Bruzual & Charlot (2003) with a
The model spectra were then convolved with the SCORPIO Salpeter (1955) initial mass function. To get a better handle
Line Spread Function (LSF) which was derived from twi- on the stellar populations we make use of the Sloan Digital
light sky spectra observed on the same nights as the galaxy. Sky Survey (SDSS) ugriz and Galaxy Evolution Explorer
The LSF parameters were estimated over several segments (GALEX) near-UV (NUV) photometry. The colours of the
of the wavelength range by fitting the observed spectrum by ring, measured after subtracting the underlying light of the
a broadened high-resolution spectrum of the Sun using the core, are u−g = 1.15±0.12, g −r = 0.43±0.05, r −i = 0.05,
ULySS software (http://ulyss.univ-lyon1.fr/). i − z = 0.78 ± 0.23 and NUV − g = 2.26 ± 0.12. Note that
The kinematic and stellar population parameters were the errors reflect differences in photometric measurements in
fitted simultaneously to the spectral observations using two SDSS imaging runs. In addition, the number of ionizing
ULySS via a least-squares minimization technique. The emis- Lyman-continuum photons, which is given by the models, is
sion spectra were then obtained by subtracting the best- estimated from the Hα flux under some simple assumptions
fitting model spectra from the observed spectra. (see Finkelman et al. 2010 for more details). The data are


30 30

20 20

10 10
∆δ, arcsec

∆δ, arcsec
0 0

−10 −10

−20 −20

−30 −30
30 20 10 0 −10 −20 −30 30 20 10 0 −10 −20 −30
∆α, arcsec ∆α, arcsec

Figure 8. Left: a residual image of Hoag’s Object produced by subtracting the AALP model from the combined HST image. Right: a
sharped-masked image obtained by subtracting the median filtered image from the original BTA image. Both images are displayed as
negatives.

10-17
30
25
20 Hβ
Fe I
15 Mg b
Flux, erg cm-2 s-1 A-1

10 G-band

5 Center
H+K

0.7
0.6 Ring
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
4000 4250 4500 4750 5000 5250 5500
Wavelength, A
Figure 9. Representative spectra of the core and the ring (black lines) and their best-fit models (red lines). The main absorption features
are marked in the upper panel. The x-axis shows the rest-frame wavelengths.

best-fit by ∼1 Gyr old and 10 Myr stellar populations with provide only a consistency check of conclusions based on
2.5 and 0.2 Z⊙ , respectively. The mass fraction of young-to- our spectroscopic measurements.
old populations is about 10%. Although the errors on the
results are not large, we caution that five free parameters
might not be sufficiently constrained by our limited data.
The obtained values are therefore not reliable and should


Figure 10. The radial distributions of the stellar age and metallicity along PA=45◦ . The May 2009 observational setup had higher
spectral resolution but shorter exposure time with respect to the August 2009 setup.

4 THE STRUCTURE OF HOAG’S OBJECT band central surface brightness and absolute blue magnitude
of the core characterize it as a ’true elliptical’ (see fig. 1 of
4.1 The central core Kormendy et al. 2009). The red colour gradient towards the
centre of the core is also common of intermediate-luminosity
The presence of a blue detached ring, viewed face-on, around ellipticals (Faber al. 1997).
a red central core gives Hoag’s Object its unique appearance.
The core itself seems, however, to be a normal spheroid in The analysis of the HST images shows that the PA
all its photometric and kinematic properties (Schweizer et smoothly decreases from ∼75◦ at the centre to a value of
al. 1987). Whether the core is truly a bulge or an ellipti- ∼45◦ toward the edge of the core. Furthermore, the kine-
cal galaxy, a question raised by Schweizer et al. (1987), is matic axis is only aligned with the photometric major axis
probably irrelevant in light of our current understanding of toward the edge of the core. Such an isophotal twisting is
galaxy formation processes. Classical bulges and ellipticals common in ellipticals where the light profile deviates from
happen to have common general properties, including star the r 1/4 -law and is generally attributed to the misalignment
formation history and chemical enrichment, which implies of stellar orbits inside the bulge (Fasano & Bonoli 1989). In
that they are in fact similar objects (Renzini 1999). In this this view, the variation in the PA and ellipticity along the
view, ellipticals form as bulges in the early universe, but r 1/4 core of Hoag’s Object probably arise from its intrinsic
fail to grow or maintain a prominent disc for some reason. triaxial structure.
A different kind of bulge may form through the slow rear- Do the kinematic properties of the core also appear to
rangement of disc material and therefore have structure and be characteristic of a classical bulge? To obtain the central
kinematics resembling that of a disc (Fisher & Drory 2008). velocity dispersion we used the deepest spectral measure-
Such dynamically-cold bulges are referred to as ‘pseudob- ments (along PA=45◦ , which also has the best seeing) and
ulges’ to distinguish them from the dynamically hot classical averaged the data inside r < re = 2.8 arcsec. The calculated
bulges (Kormendy & Kennicutt 2004). effective velocity dispersion of σ = 151±5 km s−1 is in agree-
All the photometric evidence point to the core of Hoag’s ment with the Schweizer et al. (1987) value of σ = 154 ± 6
Object being a classical bulge. It clearly shows a smooth and km s−1 . The maximum observed rotation velocity along the
regular r 1/4 light profile with no features or inner structure, major axis is V = 70 ± 8 km s−1 at r = 4 arcsec, which
which is typical of an elliptical galaxy. Furthermore, the B- should be taken as a lower limit since the galaxy is seen in

projection. To further investigate the observed kinematics of
the core we fitted the MPFS data adopting the ‘tilted-ring’
method (Begeman 1989), briefly described below and also in
Moiseev et al. (2004). At first, we fixed the position of the
kinematic centre to be the symmetry centre of the veloc-
ity field and found that it coincides within 1 pixel with the
centre of the continuum image. We then fixed the rotation
centre at the centre of the continuum image. We fitted the
observational points with a simple circular rotation model
and derived the systemic velocity Vsys = 12767 ± 3 km s−1 ,
the kinematic position angle PA=41 ± 5◦ and the equatorial
plane inclination to the line-of-sight i = 19 ± 5◦ . We then
divided the velocity fields into concentric elliptical annulus
of one arcsec width with fixed values of Vsys , PA and i, mea-
sured the radial velocity as a function of azimuthal angle in
the plane of the galaxy, and determined the mean rotation
velocity Vrot as a function of galactic radius. As demon-
strated in Fig. 11, the model rotation velocity is rising up
to 180 km s−1 at the distance r = 6 arcsec (≃2re ) which is
the limit of our kinematic measurements for the core.
The derived morphological and kinematical properties
slightly deviate from the fundamental plane for ellipticals in
log(re ), µe and logσ but are within the 3-σ scatter (see
Dressler et al. 1987; Faber et al. 1989; Reda et al. 2005).
We also placed the core on the anisotropy diagram, which
relates the ratio of the ordered and random motion (V /σ) in
a galaxy to its observed ellipticity. The V /σ value measured
for the core is ∼0.46, and when applying the inclination
correction it increases to ∼1.2. Given that the ellipticity is
less than 0.03 at re indicates that the core is an extremely
fast rotator (see fig. 9 in Cappellari et al. 2007).

4.2 The ring
Hα emission is detected along the entire ring, at least to
the limit of the luminous stellar component, as shown by
Fig. 2. Adopting the titled-ring approximation we fitted the
observational data with a simple circular rotation model and
derived the systemic velocity Vsys = 12761 ± 4 km s−1 , the
kinematical position angle PA= 43 ± 3◦ and the equatorial
plane inclination to the line-of-sight i = 18 ± 4◦ . The fit was Figure 11. Radial variations of kinematic parameters character-
limited for regions inside 18 < r < 28 arcsec since at smaller izing the velocity field of the ionized gas. From top to bottom:
rotation velocity, position angle, inclination and systemic velocity.
radial distances the velocity field is slightly perturbed (see
The filled circles and open diamonds represent the “tilted-ring”
below). As shown on the left panel of Fig. 12 this simplified method results for the ionized gas (FPI data) and stars (MPFS
’flat disc’ model fits well the ionized gas velocity field with data), respectively. The thick gray line shows the warp model
relatively minor velocity residuals. fitted parameters.
A second model, labeled ‘tilted-rings’ on Fig. 12, used
three free parameters for fitting the observed velocities in
each elliptical annual: PA, Vrot and Vsys . Since this model is Moiseev (2008), the PA, i and Vrot radial variations were
indeterminate to individual measurements of the inclination determined with four fixed radial nodes and were interpo-
of narrow, nearly face-on rings, the value of i was kept fixed. lated to all radii using spline functions. The resulting two-
Fig. 11 shows the radial variations of the model parameters dimensional model was then smoothed to the spatial reso-
whereas the model velocity field together with the residu- lution of FPI data and fitted to the observed velocity field
als map are displayed on the lower panel of Fig. 12. The by a χ2 -minimization procedure. This approach fundamen-
ionized gas rotation curve is nearly flat with Vmax = 260 tally differs from the tilted-rings model since the model is
km s−1 and the systemic velocity agrees with our fit to the first constructed for the entire velocity field and only then
stellar core. The observed PA twist at r = 14 − 18 arcsec is fitted to the observations. The thick gray line in Fig. 11
might be related to non-circular motions in the plane of the shows the radial variations of the best-fit warp disc parame-
ring or with circular rotation in inclined orbits. To further ters, whereas the model ionized gas velocity field is presented
investigate the nature of these orbits we fitted the velocity in the right panel of Fig. 12. The residual velocities for the
field with a ‘warp disc’ model similar to that described by three models are typically less than 20 km s−1 with the warp
Moiseev (2008). Instead of using analytic functions, as in disc model best describing the observed velocities at r < 18

arcsec. However, as we argue below, the resulting parameters 5.1 Review of the old hypotheses
of the warp disc appear problematic and unreliable.
5.1.1 Bar instability
If Hoag’s Object has a large HI disc, it follows that we
can trace only a small part of it where ongoing star forma- After establishing the extragalactic nature of Hoag’s Ob-
tion produces significant Hα emission. We therefore must ject, several scenarios were put forward in an attempt to
extrapolate the observed radial variation of the PA to the account for the structure of the galaxy. An explanation by
centre. Our extrapolation of the inward gas rotation curve Brosch (1985) suggested that the ring could be related with
significantly disagrees with any reliable mass distribution the ‘resonance hypothesis’, i.e., formed around the core due
along the central core or with the stellar rotation derived to a dynamical Lindblad resonance in response to internal
from the MPFS data. The inner orbits in a disc are expected non-axisymmetric perturbations. In this view, the ring was
to be more stable than the outer orbits due to the increas- formed in a similar manner as rings in barred spiral galax-
ing surface density and shorter relaxation times closer the ies by slow internal evolution and without requiring galaxy
galaxy centre. Although inner strong warps and polar discs interactions (see also Wakamatsu 1990); a bar transfers an-
are known to exist, these are typically associated with a com- gular momentum to the outer disc, thereby driving gas out-
pact or circumnuclear structure rather than with a large- wards from the centre where it collects into an outer ring
scale disc (e.g., Bettoni, Fasano & Galletta 1990, Corsini near resonance (Kormendy & Kennicutt 2004). This pro-
et al. 2003, Sil’chenko & Afanasiev 2004). Large-scale polar cess is expected to instantaneously trigger star formation
structures in early-type galaxies can form around a triax- throughout the ring, indicating that the observed colours of
ial or tumbling gravitational potential, but tend to show the ring are of a stellar population few Gyr old. However, his
visible signs of inner star formation or dust lanes crossing failure to detect a bar led Brosch to conclude that Hoag’s
the stellar core (see Sparke 1996; Sparke et al. 2009; J´zsa
o Object is truly a S0 galaxy where the disc suffered a strong
et al. 2009). Moreover, warped discs are often inclined to bar instability, leaving an extremely faint bar.
the main plane of the stellar core where the gas lies outside New evidence about the nature of Hoag’s Object
the galaxy plane due to a specific orientation of the angular emerged with the detection by Schweizer et al. (1987) of
momentum of accreting matter (e.g., van Driel et al. 1995; an HI component significantly more massive than the upper
Moiseev 2008). This is in contradiction with the kinematical limit determined by Brosch (1985). The two-horned HI pro-
alignment between the stellar core of Hoag’s Object and its file was interpreted as typical of discs with a flat or slightly
ionized gas component at distances r > 18 arcsec. rising rotation curve rather than with a thick shell. The
We therefore dismiss the warped disc hypothesis and presence of such a massive HI component is expected to sta-
suggest that non-circular motions provide a more realistic bilize a disc against bar instability (Sellwood 1981). This
explanation of the ionized gas dynamics. Such motions may was given by Schweizer et al. (1987) as a strong argument
be related with radial motions caused by a non-axisymmetric against the Brosch (1985) hypothesis.
potential, or more likely with streaming motions along a spi- The photometric and kinematic properties of the core,
ral pattern, as observed in Hoag’s Object optical images. We together with their failure to detect a bar or any evidence
conclude also that the spiral pattern is unlikely an helical for a discy component, led Schweizer et al. (1987) to con-
structure which only by chance coincides with the core plane clude that Hoag’s Object is a ‘normal spheroid for its lumi-
and is viewed nearly face-on. First, as demonstrated in Fig. nosity’. The new photometric and kinematic data presented
12, even the warped disc model cannot reproduce all the fea- here leave no doubt that the core of Hoag’s Object exhibits
tures of the velocity field, implying that at least part of the no disc-like fine structure in its central regions. Furthermore,
motion is non-circular. Second, galaxies with helical struc- the 10 Gyr old stellar population of the core argues against
tures always present extended high- or low-contrast features gas inflow and a late star formation episode, which are ex-
(shells and envelopes, see Makarov, Reshetnikov & Yakovl- pected during the evolution of a bar. Thus, the core can be
eva 1989; Sparke et al. 2008; Sparke et al. 2009) whereas we safely characterized as a true elliptical surrounded by a ring
could not detect any such features outside the ring of Hoag’s (see also Sandage & Bedke 1994; Finkelman & Brosch 2011).
Object down to very low surface brightnesses (see Fig. 4). In
addition, the light distribution along the ring of Hoag’s Ob-
5.1.2 Major accretion event
ject varies only little relative to the brightness fluctuations
observed along helical structures in other galaxies. Schweizer et al. (1987) discussed also the hypothesis that
Hoag’s Object resulted from a direct collision or close en-
counter of two nearby galaxies. The authors found that the
core and the ring have similar recession velocities and con-
cluded that they must form a single object. They there-
fore ruled out an older hypothesis that Hoag’s Object is
a classical collisional ring seen with its intruding compan-
ion superimposed (Hoag 1950; O’Connell, Scargle & Sar-
5 THE FORMATION OF HOAG’S OBJECT gent 1974). However, as pointed out by Appleton & Struck-
Marcell (1996), the peculiar configuration of the core and
The detailed photometry and kinematic study of Hoag’s Ob- the ring can be explained if Hoag’s Object is viewed at an
ject provides reliable clues concerning the nature of this pe- oblique angle to our line-of-sight and exactly as the intrud-
culiar galaxy. We use the new data to test old formation ing companion reaches its furthest distance from the target,
hypotheses of Hoag’s Object and provide an alternative sug- where it is at rest relative to the ring. This possible com-
gestion. bination of rare circumstances can be dismissed since our


Figure 12. Modeling of the ionized gas velocity field. The upper panels represent three different models while the lower panels represent
the models corresponding residual maps, constructed by subtracting the models from the observed data.

data strongly indicate that the system has nearly reached There are also clear signatures that star formation is cur-
equilibrium. Since such a relaxed structure is also seen in rently taking place in the ring.
the Hoag-type galaxy UGC 4599, we conclude that the col- The major accretion event can also be tested by looking
lisional ring scenario is not responsible for forming genuine for signatures of extended fine structure or of morphological
Hoag-type galaxies (Finkelman & Brosch 2011). distortion and asymmetries. The deep BTA optical image re-
Schweizer et al. (1987) put forward a new hypothesis veals no faint tidal tails nor low surface brightness features,
that Hoag’s Object formed in a ‘major accretion event 2-3 supporting the idea that any presumed event should have
Gyr ago’ by mass transfer or merger, in a mechanism similar occurred at least 2-3 Gyr ago (e.g., Hibbard & Mihos 1995;
to that forming polar ring galaxies. The authors emphasized Duc et al. 2011). For the gas to settle in ordered orbits,
that they could not detect any tidal tail, ripple signatures as demonstrated by the two-horned HI profile and by the
or merging signature which are expected if an interaction- ionized gas velocity map, several orbits are necessary. The
driven event took place recently. They also mentioned that orbital period at the radius of the ring is ∼0.4 Gyr which
the bright knots in the ring are aligned in a narrow ring implies that the gas required at least ∼1 Gyr to settle in
which is off-centre with respect to the main ring, implying circular ordered orbits, depending on the true size of the HI
that the ring has not yet settled since the event took place. disc. To confirm that the atomic gas is in a regularly rotat-
Do our observational data agree with the Schweizer et ing HI disc or ring, and to detect whether it connects with
al. (1987) scenario? Closely examining the detached ring unsettled HI structures, such as tails and clouds, requires
structure constrains the age of the presumed accretion event. high-resolution 21-cm mapping.
The stellar population of the ring was derived in Section These indications seem to put strong limits on the age
3.4 by fitting the observational data with SSP models. The of the ring of Hoag’s Object, and are supposedly consistent
spectral stellar population analysis and colours of the ring with the Schweizer et al. (1987) hypothesis. However, several
indicate the presence of a 2 Gyr old stellar population. other considerations might prove difficult to explain with a

major accretion scenario. The total blue light coming from mass) of ∼ 0.5 Gyr stars. However, we emphasize that our
the ring is about 3.3 × 109 L⊙ . A ∼1-3 Gyr old stellar pop- deep spectroscopic measurements fit very well a single stellar
ulation with Z = 0.4 Z⊙ (see Fig. 10) has a predicted mass- population of 10 Gyr (see Fig. 9).
to-light ratio of about 1-3 (Bruzual & Charlot 2003) which The imprint of a late starburst might be difficult to
indicates that the total mass of stars in the ring is larger than detect by optical means. Therefore, more conclusive con-
3×109 M⊙ . Examining the archived GALEX NUV image of straints on the galaxy merging history should be found by
Hoag’s Object, and following the star formation rate calcu- fitting a detailed UV-to-IR spectral energy distribution of
lation by Salim et al. (2007), we estimate the star formation the galaxy with composite stellar population models. For
rate within the entire ring to be ∼0.7 M⊙ yr−1 . Adopting instance, 1-Gyr-old instantaneous starburst might leave an
the Kennicutt (1998) relation, we estimate the star forma- observational signature in the mid-IR (Vega et al. 2010). Re-
tion rate from the Hα luminosity to be 0.7 ± 0.1 M⊙ yr−1 , cently formed massive stars could be traced by their NUV
in agreement with the UV estimate. Such a continuous star light. The NUV-optical colour would become bluer even if
formation rate would have formed the ring within more than the core of Hoag’s Object has suffered a small amount of
4 Gyr. recent residual star formation. Using SDSS and GALEX
Adding the total mass of stars in the ring to the ob- archival data we measure NUV − r ≈ 5.1 which puts Hoag’s
served HI mass implies that the initial HI mass in the Object below the red sequence limit but does not necessar-
disc was well over 1010 M⊙ . Such an amount of HI gas is ily require a recent star formation episode (Hernńdez &
a
more than twice that of the Milky Way and is at least one Bruzual 2009).
order of magnitude larger than the typical HI content of Finally, we turn to test the major accretion hypothesis
dwarf irregular galaxies (Matthews, Gallagher & Littleton from a kinematical point of view. The relaxed kinematics of
1993; Matthews & Gallagher 1996). This implies that the the core indicate also that it could not have formed too re-
gas could not have been accreted from a single event by a cent. The specific kinematical properties of the merger rem-
passing gas-rich dwarf companion (see also Galletta, Sage nant depend strongly on the details of the merging process
& Sparke 1997; Sparke & Cox 2000, Sancisi et al. 2008). and specifically on the relative angular momenta of the two
The accretion of a large number of small neighbours also merging galaxies (Toomre 1977; Mihos & Hernquist 1996,
seems unlikely, considering the low-density environment of Barnes 2002; Bournaud, Jog & Combes 2005; Di Matteo
Hoag’s Object and that different companions would inter- et al. 2007). Numerical simulations show that fast rotators
act at random angles to Hoag’s Object. However, note that can maintain the angular momentum content from the pro-
our environmental study is based only on objects with mea- genitor disc galaxies, depending on their mass ratio. How-
sured redshift included in NED. Previous studies of gas-rich ever, fast rotating E/S0 galaxies appear to resemble the
early-type galaxies have demonstrated that nearby compan- progenitor galaxies more than the simulated merger rem-
ions with detectable atomic gas are often missed by optical nants, which raises doubts about the importance of merg-
catalogues or show no sign of an optical counterpart (e.g., ers in forming this type of galaxies (Jesseit et al. 2009). In
Serra et al. 2006; Struve et al. 2010). In some cases, radio particular, the formation of a round, extremely fast rotating
observations reveal also signs of interactions with neighbor- galaxy such as Hoag’s Object appears to pose a serious chal-
ing galaxies, such as HI bridges or tails (e.g., Finkelman & lenge to the standard view of galaxy mergers. State-of-the-
Brosch 2011). Exploring the HI environment at high sensi- art high-resolution numerical simulations of binary mergers
tivity is therefore essential to complement our optical study. of disc and early-type galaxies found that most of the fast
An equal-mass merger of two massive galaxies could ac- rotators produced in major mergers have intermediate flat-
count for the high HI content and reproduce the observed tening, with ellipticities between 0.4 and 0.6 (Bois et al.
stellar distribution characteristic of an elliptical galaxy 2011). The majority of these simulated galaxies also have a
(Mulchaey & Zabludoff 1999; Reda et al. 2004, 2007; Bour- bar.
naud, Jog & Combes 2007). In this scenario, at least a frac- To conclude, the physical properties of the ring are con-
tion of the initial gas is expected to lose angular momentum sistent with (although not supportive of) the Schweizer et
and fall toward the centre of the remnant, subsequently trig- al. (1987) hypothesis. However, the major accretion event
gering star formation and probably nuclear activity. Some is, to say the least, inconsistent with our kinematical ob-
of the gas in the two merging galaxies can retain most of servations and stellar population modeling of the core. We
its angular momentum and spread at large radii, and at a therefore deem this scenario unlikely, although further ob-
later stage be re-accreted to settle in an extended, massive servations are required to disprove it.
disc around the merger remnant (Serra et al. 2008 and ref-
erences therein). A merger-induced central starburst would
have used a large fraction of the cold gas of the core, which 5.2 A new hypothesis
can explain the low amounts of atomic and molecular gas
5.2.1 Formation of the core
reported in the literature. A robust analysis of the SDSS
spectra of Hoag’s Object using the VESPA code (VErsatile Hoag’s Object is located in a very low-density environment
SPectral Analysis, Tojeiro et al. 2007) hints at such a late with the closest companion with known redshift ∼3 Mpc
event in the evolution of the core. VESPA provides detailed away. Different possible formation scenarios have been pro-
star formation histories for the SDSS DR5 galaxies obtained posed for isolated ellipticals by observational studies, but
by fitting all of the available absorption features, as well their nature remains debated and a detailed study of their
as the shape of the continuum, with synthetic models. The properties is still required (Niemi et al. 2010). If the core
VESPA analysis of the core shows that it formed more than of Hoag’s Object did not form in a major merger it could
9 Gyr ago, but contains also a small fraction (about 3% in be the result of a monolithic gas collapse. According to this

model, stars form during a rapid dissipative collapse while et al. 2010). Deep HI observations of nearby spiral galax-
the gas sinks to the centre of the forming galaxy and is ies revealed large quantities of extraplanar cold gas at large
chemically enriched by evolving stars (Larson 1974, 1975; vertical distances which may provide important clues to the
Carlberg 1984; Arimoto & Yoshii 1987). Such a scenario roles of star formation and accretion (Heald et al. 2010 and
naturally explains the smooth r 1/4 light distribution of the references therein). While most of the gas in these halos
core. is probably related to star formation-driven disc-halo flows
The metallicity of the central component of Hoag’s Ob- (e.g., Bregman 1980), a small fraction might be accreted
ject can provide an important clue to the formation of the from the IGM. This is hinted by the presence of large HI
core. A major merger of two massive progenitors is expected streams and small, counter-rotating HI clouds found in these
to produce a more metal-rich stellar population and shal- gas halos (Morganti et al. 2006; Oosterloo, Fraternali & San-
lower metallicity gradient than the predicted gradients of cisi 2007). Accretion from the cosmic filament web could also
dissipative collapse models. The gas around the core must account for the formation of polar structures around early-
have the same origin as the gas from which stars formed. type galaxies (Macci´ et al. 2006; Brook et al. 2008). In fact,
o
Thus, a continuous star formation process in the ring would the formation of a central spheroid surrounded by a massive,
lead to a chemical enrichment of the young stars of the ring low-luminosity disc of high HI content seems to be more con-
with respect to the stars in the core. sistent with cold accretion processes rather than with galaxy
To state definite conclusions about the metallicity and interactions (Spavone et al. 2010). Furthermore, a growing
age gradients, and break the age-metallicity degeneracy, we line of evidence for cold gas accretion in isolated galaxies,
determined them simultaneously in our model fit. We esti- including such with polar components, suggests that this is
mate the metallicity gradient along the core of Hoag’s Ob- a realistic way of building up galaxies in underdensed en-
ject to be d([Z/H])/dlogr = −0.4 dex per dex. This value vironments (Stanonik et al. 2009; van de Weygaert et al.
does not allow distinguishing with confidence between the 2011).
monolithic dissipative collapse picture and a major merger The two-horned shape of the 21-cm line profile of Hoag’s
(see Kobayashi 2004; Sńchez-Bl´zquez et al. 2006; Baes et
a a Object implies that it lacks a prominent gas halo. This is
al. 2007; Spolaor et al. 2009 and references therein). How- not surprising since the core of Hoag’s Object is an isolated
ever, we note that the metallicity profile of the core is prob- elliptical galaxy with no active star formation. The ionized
ably smeared by seeing effects, thus the true metallicity gra- gas velocity curve of the ring implies that Hoag’s Object
dient is probably steeper, which would be more consistent has a halo mass of Mhalo = Rv 2 /G ≈ 3 × 1011 M⊙ within
with the monolithic collapse hypothesis. a radius of 20 kpc. While such a halo mass is probably not
Explaining the fast rotation of the core by the typical large enough to accrete in the early Universe most of the
anisotropy of an oblate (or mildly triaxial) spheroid would 1010 M⊙ HI content (Kereˆ et al. 2005; Serra et al. 2006;
s
require it to be extremely flattend with intrinsic elliptic- Finkelman & Brosch 2011) we note that our calculation sets
ity close to 1, which seems very unlikely. This implies that, only a lower limit on the mass, which would be larger by an
since its formation, Hoag’s Object gained additional angular order of magnitude if Hoag’s Object is indeed surrounded
momentum from an external source. Accretion of gas from by an extended HI disc.
outside could have increased V /σ significantly assuming that The cold gas accretion mechanism for disc formation
the additional gas forms stars (Emsellem et al. 2007). Such a predicts rather low metallicities of Z = 0.1 Z⊙ (Dekel &
process should preferentially occur in gas-rich environments Birnboim 2006; Ocvirk, Pichon & Teyssier 2008; Agertz,
at high-redshifts or in low-density regions (Emsellem et al. Teyssier & Moore 2009). Subsequent enrichment due to on-
2011). going star formation activity during the last few Gyr could
account for metallicities as high as those of outer discs of
bright spiral galaxies (Bresolin et al. 2009; Spavone et al.
5.2.2 Formation of the ring 2010). Metal enrichment influenced by the stellar evolution
Although an extended HI structure could have formed of the old core itself is expected to produce a metallicity
around the central core in a gas-rich merging system (Barnes gradient along the ring. Unfortunately, all of these cannot
2002), we showed that the large gas content was more likely be tested with our spectroscopic data due to the large un-
accreted early in the galaxy evolution. Accretion of gas certainty in the metallicity measurements.
from the intergalactic medium (IGM) during a prolonged,
dynamically-quiet phase can explain both the flow of sub-
5.2.3 Evolutionary path
stantial amounts of gas onto a pre-existing early-type galaxy
(Kereˇ et al. 2005; Serra et al. 2008; Dekel, Sari & Ceverino
s The significant HI gas reservoir of Hoag’s Object is not un-
2009; Bournaud & Elmegreen 2009) and the extremely high usual for early-type galaxies (Morganti et al. 2006). In par-
specific angular momentum of the core. If part of the gas ticular, recent studies revealed extended, low-level star for-
is not shock heated to the virial temperature of the halo mation activity in the form of outer rings and spiral arms
and reaches a maximum temperature below 105 K, then it around a surprisingly high fraction of these galaxies (Thilker
can cool to the neutral atomic state on a timescale of sev- et al. 2007; Donovan et al. 2009; Salim & Rich 2010; Thilker
eral Gyr while forming a dilute and extended atomic gas et al. 2010; Finkelman & Brosch 2011). In most cases the star
structures. The amount of gas accumulated by this ’cold’ formation is probably fueled by newly acquired gas from mi-
accretion process depends on the halo mass and on environ- nor gas-rich mergers or from the IGM. Such late, large-scale
mental properties. star formation could potentially transform the galaxy while
Observational evidence for the theoretical picture of building its stellar disc.
IGM accretion are still poor (e.g., Serra et al. 2008; Steidel Hoag’s Object may represent an extreme form of this

class of galaxies as an evolved stage of an elliptical galaxy Khoperskov et al. 2010). The twisting of the spiral struc-
formed early in cosmic time (Marcum, Aars & Fanelli ture by the differential rotation could lead to the formation
2004). The infalling primordial or intergalactic gas proba- of a long-lived ring, provided that the star formation is not
bly evolved only very slowly for several Gyr until eventually too intense. Such an event would account for the gap in the
settling into a stable orbit around the forming or pre-existing light distribution between the core and the ring (Schwarz
central bulge (Schwarz 1981; Pearce & Thomas 1991; Finkel- 1981; Pearce & Thomas 1991) as well as for the moderate
man & Brosch 2011). Hoag’s Object would be a particularly metallicity and the old age of the core.
promising case to investigate if gas accretion plays a more
significant role in low-density environments (Oosterloo et al.
2010). 6 CONCLUSIONS
Deep HI imaging is necessary to map the extended halo
of cold gas clouds around Hoag’s Object, or to detect tidally- We analyzed here new observations of Hoag’s Object, con-
disrupted dwarf companions. The exact details of gas accre- sisting of multiband photometry with the HST/WFPC2 and
tion depend on the presence of X-ray gas in the galactic long-slit and 3D spectroscopic data observations with the
halo, which could ionize at least part of the cold gas be- Russian 6-m telescope. We showed that Hoag’s Object has
fore it reaches the disk (e.g. Nipoti & Binney 2007). The a slightly elongated bulge which exhibits the typical mor-
detection of AGNs in low star formation environments, such phology of an elliptical galaxy and the dynamics of an ex-
as elliptical galaxies, might account also for a delayed, extremely fast rotator. A variation of the PA and ellipticity im-
tended star-forming phase. While no clear sign of recent nu- plies that the isophotes are intrinsically twisted, i.e., the core
clear activity is detected in optical spectra of the nucleus is not axisymmetric. The PA gradually decreases from the
of Hoag’s Object, AGNs are commonly associated with star centre outwards to the true kinematical PA, which provides
formation quenching during their initial growth phase (e.g., a strong evidence that the system had settled to its cur-
Croton et al. 2006; Salim & Rich 2010). A detailed mapping rent configuration long time ago and is now in equilibrium.
of Hoag’s Object in the X-ray and the far-UV wavelengths Considering the age of the host galaxy and the massive, ex-
could therefore contribute to our understanding of the inter- tended HI content we concluded that the core formed more
play between the various gas phases and of the role of AGN than ∼10 Gyr ago and that the HI disc probably formed a
feedback processes in this galaxy. short time after.
If the gas is distributed over an extended disc around The ring itself shows extended Hα emission, including
Hoag’s Object it would be relatively dilute. Detailed VLA also several clumps and knots where the emission is more
observations of the Hoag-type galaxy UGC 4599 reveal an intense. The rotation of the ionized gas ring seems to follow
extended ∼100 kpc HI disc where the dilute gas is denser the circular motion of the cold atomic hydrogen component.
along spiral arms and a ring which coincide with the opti- Non-circular velocity residuals of 20 km s−1 are proba-
cal ring (Dowell 2010). Without detailed HI maps of Hoag’s bly related with the optical spiral pattern across the ring.
Object we cannot state whether or not the HI distribution Having failed to detect a bar or a central discy component,
exceeds the apparent edge of the ring at about 25 kpc and we suggest that a nonaxisymmetric potential, presumably
shows similar features. Given the measured ionized gas ve- the triaxial core, induces a spiral motion along the HI disc
locity and a typical velocity dispersion of about 7 km s−1 , outside the core, which leads, in turn, to the continuous for-
and following Serra et al. (2006), we estimate the critical mation of stars. This could also explain the prominent gap
surface density for star formation to be about 5.6 M⊙ pc−2 . between the core and the ring.
However, assuming the HI distribution has a central hole Considering all pieces of observational evidence we con-
and is associated only with the ionized gas ring, the av- clude that accretion of gas from the IGM onto a pre-existing
erage surface density of the neutral gas cannot be larger elliptical galaxy best explains both the peculiar structure
than ∼4.8 M⊙ pc−2 , i.e., below the star formation thresh- and kinematics of Hoag’s Object. However, a better under-
old. This can be explained if the canonical star formation standing of this process is needed to put firm constraints
law we adopted cannot be extrapolated to the outer parts on the expected properties of post-accretion systems. A de-
of (disc) galaxies. tailed HI study is required to investigate the surroundings
The presence of spiral features (and warps) in the outer of Hoag’s Object and its cold gas disc and help to further
regions of extended HI discs around galaxies is generally re- understand the nature of this galaxy.
lated to bars or oval discs (Sancisi et al. 2008), which are not
present in genuine Hoag-type objects. Schweizer et al. (1987)
Acknowledgments
mentioned that an elongated triaxial core could, in princi-
ple, successfully reproduce the ring of Hoag’s Object without We are grateful for the generous allocation of observing time
requiring a bar (see also Wakamatsu 1990). Although this to this project by the Time Allocation Committee of the
idea was dismissed due to what appeared to the authors as Special Astrophysical Observatory. The 6-m SAO RAS tele-
a rotationally symmetrical core, we interpret the variation scope is operated under the financial support of the Min-
in PA and ellipticity as evidence for triaxiality. An oval core istry of Science and Education (registration no. 01-43). We
structure, or other weakly non-spherical potentials, such as a thank Dr Alexander Burenkov for assisting in the observa-
passing companion, could continuously generate spiral waves tions with the MPFS. We also thank the Hubble Heritage
in the diffuse HI disc (see Buta 1986, Buta & Combes 1996; team at the Space Telescope Science Institute for the images
Rautiainen & Salo 2000; Bekki & Freeman 2002; Tutukov & of Hoag’s Object.
Fedorova 2006). These, in turn, could condense the gas and AM and IK thank the Russian Foundation for Ba-
trigger star formation (Sancisi et al. 2008; Bush et al. 2010; sic Research (project no. 09-02-00870, 07-02-00005 and

08-02-00627). AM is also grateful to the ’Dynasty’ Fund Dekel A., Birnboim Y., 2006, MNRAS, 368, 2
and the Russian Federal Program ’Kadry’ (contract no. Dekel A., Sari R., Ceverino D., 2009, ApJ, 703, 785
14.740.11.0800). Di Matteo P., Combes F., Melchior A. -L., Semelin B.,
This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Ex- 2007, A&A, 468, 61
tragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Donovan J. L. et al., 2009, AJ, 137, 5037
Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Dowell J., 2010, PhD thesis, Indiana University
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