Shadows in the Dark: Low-Surface-Brightness Galaxies Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey

2021 
We present a catalog of 20,977 extended low-surface-brightness galaxies (LSBGs) identified in ~ 5000 deg$^2$ from the first three years of imaging data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Based on a single-component S\'ersic model fit, we define extended LSBGs as galaxies with $g$-band effective radii $R_{\scriptsize{eff}} > 2.5"$ and mean surface brightness $\bar{\mu}_{\scriptsize{eff}}(g) > 24.3$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$. We find that the distribution of LSBGs is strongly bimodal in $(g-r)$ vs. $(g-i$) color space. We divide our sample into red ($g-i \geq 0.59$) and blue ($g-i 1.5$ kpc. The wide-area sample of LSBGs in DES can be used to test the role of environment on models of LSBG formation and evolution.
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