VLA-angst: A high-resolution H _I survey of nearby dwarf galaxies

We present the "Very Large Array survey of Advanced Camera for Surveys Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury galaxies (VLA-ANGST)." VLA-ANGST is a National Radio Astronomy Observatory Large Program consisting of high spectral (0.6-2.6kms ^-1) and spatial (∼6″) resolution observations of neutral, atomic hydrogen (H I) emission toward 35 nearby dwarf galaxies from the ANGST survey. ANGST is a systematic Hubble Space Telescope survey to establish a legacy of uniform multi-color photometry of resolved stars for a volume-limited sample of nearby galaxies (D ≲ 4 Mpc). VLA-ANGST provides VLA H I observations of the sub-sample of ANGST galaxies with recent star formation that are observable from the northern hemisphere and that were not observed in the "The H I Nearby Galaxy Survey" (THINGS). The overarching scientific goal of VLA-ANGST is to investigate fundamental characteristics of the neutral interstellar medium (ISM) of dwarf galaxies. Here we describe the VLA observations, the data reduction, and the final VLA-ANGST data products. We present an atlas of the integrated H I maps, the intensity-weighted velocity fields, the second moment maps as a measure for the velocity dispersion of the H I, individual channel maps, and integrated H I spectra for each VLA-ANGST galaxy. We closely follow the observational setup and data reduction of THINGS to achieve comparable sensitivity and angular resolution. A major difference between VLA-ANGST and THINGS, however, is the high velocity resolution of the VLA-ANGST observations (0.65 and 1.3kms ^-1 for the majority of the galaxies). The VLA-ANGST data products are made publicly available through a dedicated Web site (https://science.nrao.edu/ science/surveys/vla-angst). With available star formation histories from resolved stellar populations and lower resolution ancillary observations from the far-infrared to the ultraviolet, VLA-ANGST will enable detailed studies of the relationship between the ISM and star formation in dwarf galaxies on a 100pc scale.