Dust and Atomic Gas in Dwarf Irregular Galaxies of the M81 Group: The SINGS and THINGS View

doi:10.1086/514807

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Fabian Walter et al. 2007 ApJ 661 102 doi:10.1086/514807

Dust and Atomic Gas in Dwarf Irregular Galaxies of the M81 Group: The SINGS and THINGS View

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Fabian Walter¹, John M. Cannon^1,2, Hélène Roussel¹, George J. Bendo³, Daniela Calzetti⁴, Daniel A. Dale⁵, Bruce T. Draine⁶, George Helou⁷, Robert C. Kennicutt, Jr.^8,9, John Moustakas^9,10, George H. Rieke⁹, Lee Armus⁷, Charles W. Engelbracht⁹, Karl Gordon⁹, David J. Hollenbach¹¹, Janice Lee⁹, Aigen Li¹², Martin J. Meyer⁴, Eric J. Murphy¹³, Michael W. Regan⁴, John-David T. Smith⁹, Elias Brinks¹⁴, W. J. G. de Blok¹⁵, Frank Bigiel¹ and Michele D. Thornley¹⁶

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¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany
² Astronomy Department, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459
³ Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK
⁴ Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218
⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071
⁶ Princeton University Observatory, Princeton, NJ 08544
⁷ California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91101
⁸ Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK
⁹ Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
¹⁰ Department of Physics, New York University, New York, NY 10003
¹¹ NASA/Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, 94035
¹² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211
¹³ Department of Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520
¹⁴ Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UK
¹⁵ Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Mount Stromlo Observatory, Weston ACT 2611, Australia
¹⁶ Department of Physics, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837

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Abstract References Cited By

We present observations of the dust and atomic gas phase in seven dwarf irregular galaxies of the M81 group from the Spitzer SINGS and VLA THINGS surveys. The Spitzer observations provide a first glimpse of the nature of the nonatomic ISM in these metal-poor (Z ~ 0.1 Z), quiescent (SFR ~ 0.001-0.1 M yr^-1) dwarf galaxies. Most detected dust emission is restricted to H I column densities >1 × 10²¹ cm^-2, and almost all regions of high H I column density (>2.5 × 10²¹ cm^-2) have associated dust emission. Spitzer spectroscopy of two regions in the brightest galaxies (IC 2574 and Holmberg II) show distinctly different spectral shapes and aromatic features, although the galaxies have comparable gas-phase metallicities. This result emphasizes that the strength of the aromatic features is not a simple linear function of metallicity. We estimate dust masses of ~10⁴-10⁶ M for the M81 dwarf galaxies, resulting in an average dust-to-gas ratio (M_dust/M_{H I}) of ~3 × 10^-4 (1.5 × 10^-3 if only the H I that is associated with dust emission is considered); this is an order of magnitude lower than the typical value derived for the SINGS spirals. The dwarf galaxies are underluminous per unit star formation rate at 70 μm as compared to the more massive galaxies in SINGS by a factor of ~2. However, the average 70/160 μm ratio in the sample dwarf galaxies is higher than what is found in the other galaxies of the SINGS sample. This can be explained by a combination of a lower dust content in conjunction with a higher dust temperature in the dwarfs.

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