THE SURVEY OF H I IN EXTREMELY LOW-MASS DWARFS (SHIELD)

We present first results from the Survey of H I in Extremely Low-mass Dwarfs (SHIELD), a multi-configuration Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) study of the neutral gas contents and dynamics of galaxies with H I masses in the 10(6)-10(7) M(circle dot) range detected by the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) survey. We describe the survey motivation and concept demonstration using Very Large Array imaging of six low-mass galaxies detected in early ALFALFA data products. We then describe the primary scientific goals of SHIELD and present preliminary EVLA and WIYN 3.5 m imaging of the 12 SHIELD galaxies. With only a few exceptions, the neutral gas distributions of these extremely low-mass galaxies are centrally concentrated. In only one system have we detected H I column densities higher than 10(21) cm(-2). Despite this, the stellar populations of all of these systems are dominated by blue stars. Further, we find ongoing star formation as traced by H alpha emission in 10 of the 11 galaxies with H alpha imaging obtained to date. Taken together these results suggest that extremely low-mass galaxies are forming stars in conditions different from those found in more massive systems. While detailed dynamical analysis requires the completion of data acquisition, the most well-resolved system is amenable to meaningful position-velocity analysis. For AGC 749237, we find well-ordered rotation of 30 km s(-1) at similar to 40 '' distance from the dynamical center. At the adopted distance of 3.2 Mpc, this implies the presence of a greater than or similar to 1 x 10(8) M(circle dot) dark matter halo and a baryon fraction less than or similar to 0.1.