Dark Matter and the Chemical Evolution of Irregular Galaxies

Abstract

We present three types of chemical evolution models for irregular galaxies: closed-box with continuous star formation rates (SFRs), closed-box with bursting SFRs, and O-rich outflow with continuous SFRs. We discuss the chemical evolution of the irregular galaxies NGC 1560 and II Zw 33, and a ``typical'' irregular galaxy. The fraction of low-mass stars needed by our models is larger than that derived for the solar vicinity, but similar to that found in globular clusters. For our typical irregular galaxy we need a mass fraction of about 40% in the form of substellar objects plus non baryonic dark matter inside the Holmberg radius, in good agreement with the results derived for NGC 1560 and II Zw 33 where we do have an independent estimate of the mass fraction in non baryonic dark matter. Closed-box models are better than O-rich outflow models in explaining the C/O and Z/O observed values for our typical irregular galaxy.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure, uses emulateapj.sty package. ApJ in press. New models were added. The order of Tables has been correcte