Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jul 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007uasb.conf...19g&link_type=abstract
UV Astronomy: Stars from Birth to Death. Proceedings of the Joint Discussion n.4 during the IAU general Assembly of 2006. Ana I.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Uv Astronomy, Massive Stars, Starburst Galaxies, Galaxy Evolution
Scientific paper
Starbursts are the preferred place where massive stars form; the main source of thermal and mechanical heating in the interstellar medium, and the factory where the heavy elements form. Thus, starbursts play an important role in the origin and evolution of galaxies. Starbursts are bright at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, and after the pioneering IUE program, high spatial and spectral resolution UV observations of local starburst galaxies, mainly taken with HST and FUSE, have made relevant contributions to the following issues: a) The determination of the initial mass function (IMF) in violent star forming systems in low and high metallicity environments, and in dense (e.g. in stellar clusters) and diffuse environments: A Salpeter IMF with high-mass stars constrains well the UV properties. b) Stellar clusters are an important mode of star formation in starbursts. c) The role of starbursts in AGN: Nuclear starbursts can dominate the UV light in Seyfert 2 galaxies, having bolometric luminosities similar to the estimated bolometric luminosities of the obscured AGN. d) The interaction between massive stars and the interstellar medium: Outflows in cold, warm and coronal phases leave their imprints on the UV interstellar lines. Outflows of a few hundred km s%u22121 are ubiquitous phenomena in starbursts. Despite the very significant progress obtained over the past two decades of UV observations of starbursts, there are important problems that still need to be solved. High-spatial resolution UV observations of nearby starbursts are crucial to further progress in understanding the violent star formation processes in galaxies, the interaction between the stellar clusters and the interstellar medium, and the variation of the IMF. High-spatial resolution spectra are also needed to isolate the light from the center to the disk in UV luminous galaxies found by GALEX. Thus, a new UV mission furnished with an intermediate spectral resolution spectrograph with high spatial resolution and high UV sensitivity is required to further progress in the study of starburst galaxies and their impact on the evolution of galaxies.
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