ESO 381-47, an early-type galaxy with extended HI and a star forming
  ring
  ESO 381-47 is an early type galaxy with an extended HI disk. GALEX and very
deep optical images reveal a distinct stellar ring far outside the optical body
with a diameter of ~30 kpc, which has undergone recent star formation at 1.8 x
10^-4 Msun/yr/kpc^-2, consistent with other new results which detect low level
star formation below the traditional Kennicutt relation in the outer parts of
spiral galaxies. The morphology of this galaxy resembles the recently
identified class of ultraviolet objects called extended ultraviolet disks, or
XUV-disks. New HI observations of this galaxy taken at the ATCA and in the CnB
array at the VLA show that the cold gas lies in an extended (diameter ~90 kpc)
ring around the central S0 galaxy. The HI data cube can be well modeled by a
warped ring. The faint ionized gas in the inner parts of the galaxy is
kinematically decoupled from the stars and instead appears to exhibit
velocities consistent with the rotation of the HI ring at larger radius. The
peak of the stellar ring, as seen in the optical and UV, is slightly displaced
to the inside relative to the peak of the HI ring. We discuss the manner in
which this offset could be caused by the propagation of a radial density wave
through an existing stellar disk, perhaps triggered by a galaxy collision at
the center of the disk, or possibly due to a spiral density wave set up at
early times in a disk too hot to form a stellar bar. Gas accretion and
resonance effects due to a bar which has since dissolved are also considered to
explain the presence of the star forming ring seen in the GALEX and deep
optical data.
