NIRSPEC Observations of Brackett Lines in the Dwarf Starburst Galaxy NGC 5253

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

1

Scientific paper

We present high spectral (R ~25,000) and spatial resolution near-infrared spectra of the starburst in the dwarf galaxy NGC 5253. The data were obtained with the NIRSPEC spectrometer on the Keck Telescope. The spectra confirm the presence of the bright IR and radio ``supernebula'' discovered by Beck et al. (1996 ApJ, 457, 610) and Turner et al. (1998, AJ, 116, 1212; 2000 ApJ, 532, L109), which contains the ionization equivalent of 4000 O7 stars within a 1-2 pc region. The supernebula is detected in both Brackett α at 4.05μ m and Brackett γ at 2.17μ m. The linewidths of the Brackett lines are large for the ~ 1'' centered on the supernebula: roughly 160-170 km/s FWZI for both lines. The broad linewidths for this small (<10 pc) region are not due to galactic rotation, but probably indicate the presence of winds from the large young stellar population, estimated at a million stars. The nebula overwhelmingly dominates the Brackett line emission from the 20-30'' starburst region, in agreement with the mid-infrared continuum emission (Gorjian, Turner, & Beck 2001). This research is supported by NSF grant AST-0071276, the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation grant 94-00303, and Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

NIRSPEC Observations of Brackett Lines in the Dwarf Starburst Galaxy NGC 5253 does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with NIRSPEC Observations of Brackett Lines in the Dwarf Starburst Galaxy NGC 5253, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and NIRSPEC Observations of Brackett Lines in the Dwarf Starburst Galaxy NGC 5253 will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1267842

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.