Discovery of Intergalactic HII Regions

Details Discovery of Intergalactic HII Regions Discovery of Intergalactic HII Regions

2003-10-23

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0310674v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

To appear in the proceedings of the IAU Symposium #217, Recycling Intergalactic and Interstellar Matter, eds. P.-A. Duc, J. Br

Scientific paper

We have discovered a number of very small isolated HII regions 20-30 kpc from their nearest galaxy. The HII regions appear as tiny emission line dots (ELdots) in narrow band images obtained by the NOAO Survey for Ionization in Neutral Gas Galaxies (SINGG). We have spectroscopic confirmation of 5 isolated HII regions in 3 systems. The H-alpha luminosities of the HII regions are equivalent to the ionizing flux of only 1 large or a few small OB stars each. These stars appear to have formed in situ and represent atypical star formation in the low density environment of galaxy outskirts. In situ star formation in the intergalactic medium offers an alternative to galactic wind models to explain metal enrichment. In interacting systems (2 out of 3), isolated HII regions could be a starting point for tidal dwarf galaxies.

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