The ALFALFA Search for (Almost) Dark Galaxies across the HI Mass Function.pdfVIP

Dark Galaxies and Lost Baryons c Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 244, 2007 2007 International Astronomical Union J.I.Davies M.J. Disney, eds. DOI: 00.0000/X000000000000000X The ALFALFA Search for (Almost) Dark Galaxies across the HI Mass Function Martha P. Haynes1 1 Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA email: haynes@ 7 0 Abstract. The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) survey is a second generation blind 0 extragalactic HI survey currently in progess which is exploiting Arecibo’s superior sensitivity, 2 angular resolution and digital technology to derive a census of the local HI universe over a cosmo l logically significant volume. As of the time of this meeting, some 4500 good quality extragalactic u J HI line sources have been identified in about 15% of the final survey area. ALFALFA is detecting 6 10.8 HI masses as low as 10 M⊙ and as large as 10 M⊙ with positional accuracies typically better 2 ′′ than 20 , allowing immediate identification of the most probable optical counterparts. Only 3% 2 9.5 of all extragalactic HI sources and less than 1% of detections with MHI 10 M⊙ cannot be ] identified with a stellar component. Because ALFALFA is far from complete, the discussion here h focuses on limitations of past surveys that ALFALFA will overcome because of its greater vol p ume, sensitivity and reduced susceptibility to source confusion and on a sampling o