Collisional Debris as Laboratories to Study Star Formation

doi:10.1088/0004-6256/137/6/4561

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M. Boquien et al. 2009 The Astronomical Journal 137 4561 doi:10.1088/0004-6256/137/6/4561

COLLISIONAL DEBRIS AS LABORATORIES TO STUDY STAR FORMATION

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M. Boquien^1,2,10, P.-A. Duc², Y. Wu³, V. Charmandaris^4,11, U. Lisenfeld⁵, J. Braine⁶, E. Brinks⁷, J. Iglesias-Páramo⁸ and C. K. Xu⁹

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boquien@astro.umass.edu

¹ University of Massachusetts, Department of Astronomy, LGRT-B 619E, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
² AIM-Unité Mixte de Recherche CEA-CNRS-Université Paris VII-UMR n° 7158
³ Astronomy Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Crete, GR-71003, Heraklion, Greece
⁵ Department de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain
⁶ Observatoire de Bordeaux, UMR 5804, CNRS/INSU, B.P. 89, F-33270 Floirac, France
⁷ Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UK
⁸ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Camino Bajo de Huétor 50, 18008 Granada, Spain
⁹ California Institute of Technology, MC 405-47, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
¹⁰ CEA-Saclay, DSM/DAPNIA/Service d'Astrophysique, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette CEDEX, France.
¹¹ IESL/Foundation for Research and Technology—Hellas, GR-71110, Heraklion, Greece and Chercheur Associé, Observatoire de Paris, F-75014, Paris, France.

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Abstract References Cited By

In this paper we address the question of whether star formation (SF) is driven by local processes or the large-scale environment. To do so, we investigate SF in collisional debris where the gravitational potential well and velocity gradients are shallower and compare our results with previous work on SF in noninteracting spiral and dwarf galaxies. We have performed multiwavelength spectroscopic and imaging observations (from the far-ultraviolet to the mid-infrared) of six interacting systems, identifying a total of 60 star-forming regions in their collision debris. Our analysis indicates that in these regions (1) the emission of the dust is at the expected level for their luminosity and metallicity, (2) the usual tracers of SFR display the typical trend and scatter found in classical star-forming regions, and (3) the extinction and metallicity are not the main parameters governing the scatter in the properties of intergalactic star-forming regions; age effects and variations in the number of stellar populations seem to play an important role. Our work suggests that local properties such as column density and dust content, rather than the large-scale environment seem to drive SF. This means that intergalactic star-forming regions can be used as a reliable tool to study SF.

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