EXTENDING THE NEARBY GALAXY HERITAGE WITH<i>WISE</i>: FIRST RESULTS FROM THE<i>WISE</i>ENHANCED RESOLUTION GALAXY ATLAS

Abstract

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mapped the entire sky at\nmid-infrared wavelengths 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 microns. The mission was primarily\ndesigned to extract point sources, leaving resolved and extended sources\nunexplored. We have begun a dedicated WISE Enhanced Resolution Galaxy Atlas\n(WERGA) project to fully characterize large, nearby galaxies and produce a\nlegacy image atlas and source catalogue. Here we demonstrate the first results\nof the project for a sample of 17 galaxies, chosen to be of large angular size,\ndiverse morphology, color, stellar mass and star formation. It includes many\nwell-studied galaxies, such as M51, M81, M83, M87, M101, IC342. Photometry and\nsurface brightness decomposition is carried out after special super-resolution\nprocessing, achieving spatial fidelity similar to that of Spitzer-IRAC. We\npresent WISE, Spitzer and GALEX photometric and characterization measurements,\ncombining the measurements to study the global properties. We derive star\nformation rates using the PAH-sensitive 12 micron (W3) fluxes, warm-dust\nsensitive 22 micron (W4) fluxes, and young massive-star sensitive UV fluxes.\nStellar masses are estimated using the 3.4 micron (W1) and 4.6 micron (W2)\nmeasurements that trace the dominant stellar mass content. We highlight and\nshowcase the detailed results of M83, comparing the infrared results with the\nATCA HI gas distribution and GALEX UV emission, tracing the evolution from gas\nto stars. In addition to the enhanced images, WISE all-sky coverage provides a\ntremendous advantage over Spitzer for building a complete nearby galaxy\ncatalog, tracing both stellar mass and star formation histories. We discuss the\nconstruction of a complete mid-infrared catalog of galaxies and its\ncomplementary role to study the assembly and evolution of galaxies in the local\nuniverse.\n