THE VOID GALAXY SURVEY: OPTICAL PROPERTIES AND HI MORPHOLOGY AND KINEMATICS

We have carefully selected a sample of 60 galaxies that reside in the deepest underdensities of geometrically identified voids within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. HI imaging of 55 galaxies with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope reveals morphological and kinematic signatures of ongoing interactions and gas accretion. We probe a total volume of 485 Mpc super(3) within the voids, with an angular resolution of 8 kpc at an average distance of 85 Mpc. We reach column density sensitivities of 5 x 10 super(19) cm super(-2), corresponding to an HI mass limit of 3 x 10 super(8) M[middot in circle]. We detect Hi in 41 galaxies, with total masses ranging from 1.7 x 10 super(8) to 5.5 x 10 super(9) M[middot in circle]. The upper limits on the 14 non-detections are not inconsistent with their luminosities, given their expected Hi mass-to-light ratios. We find that the void galaxies are generally gas-rich, low-luminosity, blue disk galaxies, with optical and HI properties that are not unusual for their luminosity and morphology.