Tidal Dwarf Galaxies Bonn 2009: Ghosts from structure formation

Physics Centre Bad Honnef (Germany), May 25-29, 2009

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Poster

Title: Interacting galaxies as birthplaces of new stellar systems

Poster file: poster_Torres-Flores.pdf and poster_Torres-Flores2.pdf

Abstract:

Young extragalactic star-forming regions can be found close to merging or strongly interacting galaxies, in the outskirts of galaxy pairs or in the intragroup medium of interacting compact groups. In this work, we used multiwavelength data to search for star-forming regions in the intergalactic medium of 3 interacting systems: NGC 2623, NGC 2782 and NGC 3769. The sample was selected in a search made in the archive of the GALEX satellite (for the ultraviolet data) and the databases of the ‘Rogues Gallery’ (which contain H i maps for a number of interacting systems) and the SDSS (for the optical data). The method adopted to search for new stellar systems in the intergalactic medium of interacting galaxies consisting of detected UV emitting regions within the H i density contours, and to search for optical counterparts with ground-based images. From their UV colors, we estimated ages and masses for each region. In our systems, we found several candidates of intergalactic H ii regions and tidal dwarf galaxies, consistent with ages < 40 Myr and masses of the order of 10⁴ M_⊙ .

photos by Julia T. Scho (ForeignLight.com) / Marcel S. Pawlowski