61 research outputs found
Formation of massive clouds and dwarf galaxies during tidal encounters
Gerola et al. (1983) propose that isolated dwarf galaxies can form during galaxy interactions. As evidence of this process, Mirabel et al. (1991) find 10(exp 9) solar mass clouds and star formation complexes at the outer ends of the tidal arms in the Antennae and Superantennae galaxies. We describe observations of HI clouds with mass greater than 10(exp 8) solar mass in the interacting galaxy pair IC 2163/NGC 2207. This pair is important because we believe it represents an early stage in the formation of giant clouds during an encounter. We use a gravitational instability model to explain why the observed clouds are so massive and discuss a two-dimensional N-body simulation of an encounter that produces giant clouds
Star Formation in Tadpole Galaxies
Tadpole Galaxies look like a star forming head with a tail structure to the
side. They are also named cometaries. In a series of recent works we have
discovered a number of issues that lead us to consider them extremely
interesting targets. First, from images, they are disks with a lopsided
starburst. This result is firmly established with long slit spectroscopy in a
nearby representative sample. They rotate with the head following the rotation
pattern but displaced from the rotation center. Moreover, in a search for
extremely metal poor (XMP) galaxies, we identified tadpoles as the dominant
shapes in the sample- nearly 80% of the local XMP galaxies have a tadpole
morphology. In addition, the spatially resolved analysis of the metallicity
shows the remarkable result that there is a metallicity drop right at the
position of the head. This is contrary to what intuition would say and
difficult to explain if star formation has happened from gas processed in the
disk. The result could however be understood if the star formation is driven by
pristine gas falling into the galaxy disk. If confirmed, we could be unveiling,
for the first time, cool flows in action in our nearby world. The tadpole class
is relatively frequent at high redshift - 10% of resolvable galaxies in the
Hubble UDF but less than 1% in the local Universe. They are systems that could
track cool flows and test models of galaxy formation.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1302.435
Nuclear Black Hole Formation in Clumpy Galaxies at High Redshift
Massive stellar clumps in high redshift galaxies interact and migrate to the
center to form a bulge and exponential disk in <1 Gyr. Here we consider the
fate of intermediate mass black holes (BHs) that might form by massive-star
coalescence in the dense young clusters of these disk clumps. We find that the
BHs move inward with the clumps and reach the inner few hundred parsecs in only
a few orbit times. There they could merge into a supermassive BH by dynamical
friction. The ratio of BH mass to stellar mass in the disk clumps is
approximately preserved in the final ratio of BH to bulge mass. Because this
ratio for individual clusters has been estimated to be ~10^{-3}, the observed
BH-to-bulge mass ratio results. We also obtain a relation between BH mass and
bulge velocity dispersion that is compatible with observations of present-day
galaxies.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Ap
A Constant Bar Fraction out to Redshift z~1 in the Advanced Camera for Surveys Field of the Tadpole Galaxy
Bar-like structures were investigated in a sample of 186 disk galaxies larger
than 0.5 arcsec that are in the I-band image of the Tadpole galaxy taken with
the HST ACS. We found 22 clear cases of barred galaxies, 21 galaxies with small
bars that appear primarily as isophotal twists in a contour plot, and 11 cases
of peculiar bars in clump-cluster galaxies, which are face-on versions of chain
galaxies. The latter bars are probably young, as the galaxies contain only weak
interclump emission. Four of the clearly barred galaxies at z~0.8-1.2 have
grand design spirals. The bar fraction was determined as a function of galaxy
inclination and compared with the analogous distribution in the local Universe.
The bar fraction was also determined as a function of galaxy angular size.
These distributions suggest that inclination and resolution effects obscure
nearly half of the bars in our sample. The bar fraction was also determined as
a function of redshift. We found a nearly constant bar fraction of 0.23+-0.03
from z~0 to z=1.1. When corrected for inclination and size effects, this
fraction is comparable to the bar fraction in the local Universe, ~0.4, as
tabulated for all bar and Hubble types in the Third Reference Catalogue of
Galaxies. The average major axis of a barred galaxy in our sample is ~10 kpc
after correcting for redshift with a LambdaCDM cosmology. Galaxy bars were
present in normal abundance at least ~8 Gy ago (z~1); bar dissolution cannot be
common during a Hubble time unless the bar formation rate is comparable to the
dissolution rate.Comment: to appear in ApJ, Sept 1, 2004, Vol 612, 18 pg, 12 figure
The Star Cluster Population of the Collisional Ring Galaxy NGC 922
We present a detailed study of the star cluster population detected in the
galaxy NGC922, one of the closest collisional ring galaxies known to date,
using HST/WFPC2 UBVI photometry, population synthesis models, and N-body/SPH
simulations.We find that 69% of the clusters are younger than 7Myr, and that
most of them are located in the ring or along the bar, consistent with the
strong Halpha emission. The cluster luminosity function slope of 2.1-2.3 for
NGC922 is in agreement with those of young clusters in nearby galaxies. Models
of the cluster age distribution match the observations best when cluster
disruption is considered. We also find clusters with ages (>50Myr) and masses
(>10^5 Msun) that are excellent progenitors for faint fuzzy clusters. The
images also show a tidal plume pointing toward the companion. Its stellar age
from our analysis is consistent with pre-existing stars that were stripped off
during the passage of the companion. Finally, a comparison of the star-forming
complexes observed in NGC922 with those of a distant ring galaxy from the GOODS
field indicates very similar masses and sizes, suggesting similar origins.Comment: 17 pages including 13 figures. Accepted for publication in AJ. Full
resolution version at
http://people.physics.tamu.edu/pellerin/Pellerin_etal_NGC922.pd
Young Stellar Populations in the Collisional Ring Galaxy NGC 922
We studied the star cluster population properties in the nearby collisional
ring galaxy NGC 922 using HST/WFPC2 photometry and population synthesis
modeling. We found that 69% of the detected clusters are younger than 7 Myr,
and that most of them are located in the ring or along the bar, consistent with
the strong Halpha emission. The images also show a tidal plume pointing toward
the companion. Its stellar age is consistent with pre-existing stars that were
probably stripped off during the passage of the companion. We compared the
star-forming complexes observed in NGC 922 with those of a distant ring galaxy
from the GOODS field. It indicates very similar masses and sizes, suggesting
similar origins. Finally, we found clusters that are excellent progenitor
candidates for faint fuzzy clusters.Comment: To be published in the IAU Symposium 262 proceeding. 2 page
Rapid formation of exponential disks and bulges at high redshift from the dynamical evolution of clump cluster and chain galaxies
Many galaxies at high redshift have peculiar morphologies dominated by
10^8-10^9 Mo kpc-sized clumps. Using numerical simulations, we show that these
"clump clusters" can result from fragmentation in gravitationally unstable
primordial disks. They appear as "chain galaxies" when observed edge-on. In
less than 1 Gyr, clump formation, migration, disruption, and interaction with
the disk cause these systems to evolve from initially uniform disks into
regular spiral galaxies with an exponential or double-exponential disk profile
and a central bulge. The inner exponential is the initial disk size and the
outer exponential is from material flung out by spiral arms and clump torques.
A nuclear black hole may form at the same time as the bulge from smaller black
holes that grow inside the dense cores of each clump. The properties and
lifetimes of the clumps in our models are consistent with observations of the
clumps in high redshift galaxies, and the stellar motions in our models are
consistent with the observed velocity dispersions and lack of organized
rotation in chain galaxies. We suggest that violently unstable disks are the
first step in spiral galaxy formation. The associated starburst activity gives
a short timescale for the initial stellar disk to form.Comment: ApJ Accepted, 13 pages, 9 figure
Massive star cluster formation and evolution in tidal dwarf galaxies
Reproduced with permission from Astronomy & Astrophysics. © 2019 ESOThe formation of globular clusters remains an open debate. Dwarf starburst galaxies are efficient at forming young massive clusters with similar masses as globular clusters and may hold the key to understanding their formation. We study star cluster formation in a tidal debris - including the vicinity of three tidal dwarf galaxies - in a massive gas dominated collisional ring around NGC~5291. These dwarfs have physical parameters which differ significantly from local starbursting dwarfs. They are gas-rich, highly turbulent, have a gas metallicity already enriched up to half-solar, and are expected to be free of dark matter. The aim is to study massive star cluster formation in this as yet unexplored type of environment. We use imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope using broadband filters covering the wavelength range from the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared. We determine the masses and ages of the cluster candidates by using the spectral energy distribution-fitting code CIGALE, carefully considering age-extinction degeneracy effects on the estimation of the physical parameters. We find that the tidal dwarf galaxies in the ring of NGC 5291 are forming star clusters with an average efficiency of , comparable to blue compact dwarf galaxies. We also find massive star clusters for which the photometry suggests that they were formed at the very birth of the tidal dwarf galaxies and have survived for several hundred million years. Therefore our study shows that extended tidal dwarf galaxies and compact clusters may be formed simultaneously. In the specific case observed here, the young star clusters are not massive enough to survive for a Hubble time. However one may speculate that similar objects at higher redshift, with higher star formation rate, might form some of the long lived globular clusters.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio
NGC 2207/IC 2163: A Grazing Encounter with Large Scale Shocks
Radio continuum, Spitzer infrared, optical and XMM-Newton X-ray and UVM2
observations are used to study large-scale shock fronts, young star complexes,
and the galactic nuclei in the interacting galaxies NGC 2207/IC 2163. There are
two types of large-scale shock fronts in this galaxy pair. The shock front
along the rim of the ocular oval in IC 2163 has produced vigorous star
formation in a dusty environment. In the outer part of the companion side of
NGC 2207, a large-scale front attributed to disk or halo scraping is
particularly bright in the radio continuum but not in any tracers of recent
star formation or in X-rays. This radio continuum front may be mainly in the
halo on the back side of NGC 2207 between the two galaxies. Values of the flux
density ratio S(8 um)/S(6 cm) of kpc-sized, Spitzer IRAC star-forming clumps in
NGC 2207/IC 2163 are compared with those of giant H II regions in M81. We find
evidence that in 2001 a radio supernova was present in the core of feature i, a
mini-starburst on an outer arm of NGC 2207. X-ray emission is detected from the
NGC 2207 nucleus and from nine discrete sources, one of which corresponds to SN
1999ec, and another may be a radio supernova or a background quasar. The X-ray
luminosity and X-ray spectrum of the NGC 2207 nucleus suggests it is a highly
absorbed, low luminosity AGN.Comment: 30 pages, including 12 embedded eps figure
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