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We present the serendipitous discovery of a large double radio relic associated with the merging galaxy cluster PSZ2 G277.93+12.34 and a new odd radio circle, ORC J1027-4422, both found in deep MeerKAT 1.3 GHz wide-band data. The angular separation of the two arc-shaped cluster relics is 16 arcmin or 2.6 Mpc for a cluster redshift of z = 0.158. The thin southern relic, which shows a number of ridges/shocks including one possibly moving inwards, has a linear extent of 1.64 Mpc. In contrast, the northern relic is about twice as wide, twice as bright, but only has a largest linear size of 0.66 Mpc. Complementary SRG/eROSITA X-ray images reveal extended emission from hot intracluster gas between the two relics and around the narrow-angle tail (NAT) radio galaxy PMN J1033-4335 (z = 0.153) located just east of the northern relic. No radio halo associated with the PSZ2 cluster is detected. The radio morphologies of the NAT galaxy and the northern relic, which are also detected with the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder at 887.5 MHz, suggest both are moving in the same outward direction. The discovery of ORC J1027-4422 in a different part of the MeerKAT image makes it the 4th known single ORC. It has a diameter of 90" corresponding to 400 kpc at a tentative redshift of z = 0.3 and remains undetected in X-ray emission. We discuss similarities between galaxy and cluster mergers as the formation mechanisms for ORCs and radio relics, respectively., 14 pages, 10 figures, submitted to MNRAS

Around 400 million years after the big bang, ultraviolet emission (Lyman Continuum, LyC) from star-forming galaxies drove the reionization of the Universe. How this radiation escapes the cold neutral gas (HI) of galaxies with sufficiently little absorption to reionize the intergalactic medium is poorly understood. HI has never been mapped in confirmed LyC-emitters, leaving major uncertainties on how LyC photons escape galaxies and ionize the intergalactic medium. We imaged the 21cm HI emission of nearby reionization-era analog galaxy Haro 11 to identify how ionizing radiation escapes the neutral interstellar medium. We find that merger-driven interactions have tidally displaced up to 82% of the neutral gas from the ultraviolet emission production sites in the galaxy, allowing the escape of ionizing radiation to the intergalactic medium. Increased galaxy interactions in the early Universe predicted by cosmological models could contribute significantly to the reionization of the Universe., 19 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Nature Astronomy on November 15th, 2022

Tilted Ring Fitting Code (TiRiFiC) is a prototype computer program to construct simulated (high-resolution) astronomical spectroscopic 3d-observations (data cubes) of simple kinematical and morphological models of rotating (galactic) disks. It is possible to automatically optimize the parameterizations of constructed model disks to fit spectroscopic (3d-) observations via a χ2 minimization. TiRiFiC is currently implemented as an add-on to the Groningen Image Processing System (GIPSY) software package and attempts to provide a method to automatically fit an extended tilted-ring model directly to a data cube.

We use new deep 21 cm H i observations of the moderately inclined galaxy NGC 4559 in the HALOGAS survey to investigate the properties of extraplanar gas. We use TiRiFiC to construct simulated data cubes to match the H i observations. We find that a thick-disk component of scale height ∼2 kpc, characterized by a negative vertical gradient in its rotation velocity (lag) of ∼13 ± 5 km s −1 kpc −1 is an adequate fit to extraplanar gas features. The tilted ring models also present evidence for a decrease in the magnitude of the lag outside R 25 , and a radial inflow of ∼10 km s −1 . We extracted lagging extraplanar gas through Gaussian velocity profile fitting. From both the 3D models and extraction analyses we conclude that ∼10%–20% of the total H i mass is extraplanar. Most of the extraplanar gas is spatially coincident with regions of star formation in spiral arms, as traced by H α and GALEX FUV images, so it is likely due to star formation processes driving a galactic fountain. We also find the signature of a filament of a kinematically “forbidden” H i feature, containing ∼1.4 × 10 6 M ⊙ of H i , and discuss its potential relationship to a nearby H i hole. We discover a previously undetected dwarf galaxy in H i located ∼0.°4 (∼58 kpc) from the center of NGC 4559, containing ∼4 × 10 5 M ⊙ . This dwarf has counterpart sources in SDSS with spectra typical of H ii regions, and we conclude that it is two merging blue compact dwarf galaxies.