Other
Scientific paper
May 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21832906r&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #329.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Other
Scientific paper
The radio continuum is an excellent probe of recent star formation in other galaxies. Free-free thermal emission is characterized by a flat spectrum and will be the strongest contributor to the radio continuum at frequencies between 30-100 GHz in star-forming galaxies. The thermal free-free emission constrains the number of ionizing photons, and thus the number of massive stars in star-forming regions. Observations at these frequencies are necessary in order to disentangle the relative contributions of thermal free-free emission and nonthermal synchrotron emission and are complementary to observations of star formation tracers at other wavelengths.
We observed 26 local star-forming galaxies with the Caltech Continuum Backend on the Green Bank Telescope between 26 and 40 GHz. We have found that while some sources in our survey have relatively flat spectral indices, most have steep spectral indices over this range of frequencies. By separating the relative contributions from thermal and non-thermal flux and modeling the SEDs of these galaxies, we will infer their physical properties (temperature, density, pressure, size, etc.), and thus the dispersion timescale of star-forming regions, further constraining the star formation timescale. We have also mapped three luminous compact blue galaxies at 26-40 GHz with CCB and at 90 GHz with the MUSTANG bolometer array on the GBT. While we had expected these three galaxies to have the flat spectra characteristic of star-forming regions based on previous multi-wavelength observations, instead they had steep spectra indicative of a large non-thermal synchrotron component. Overall, our observations present a complex picture of star formation in nearby starbursting galaxies. Support for this work was provided by the NSF through award GSSP 10-0002 from the NRAO.
Balser Dana
Johnson Kaj
Kepley Amanda A.
Pisano Daniel J.
Rabidoux Katherine
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