Galaxy-Wide Shocks in Late-Merger Stage Luminous Infrared Galaxies

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

14 pages, 11 figures, Accepted to ApJ

Scientific paper

We present an integral field spectroscopic study of two nearby Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs) that exhibit evidence of widespread shock excitation induced by ongoing merger activity, IC 1623 and NGC 3256. We show the importance of carefully separating excitation due to shocks vs. excitation by HII regions and the usefulness of IFU data in interpreting the complex processes in LIRGs. Our analysis focuses primarily on the emission line gas which is extensive in both systems and is a result of the abundant ongoing star formation as well as widespread LINER-like excitation from shocks. We use emission-line ratio maps, line kinematics, line-ratio diagnostics and new models as methods for distinguishing and analyzing shocked gas in these systems. We discuss how our results inform the merger sequence associated with local U/LIRGs and the impact that widespread shock excitation has on the interpretation of emission-line spectra and derived quantities of both local and high-redshift galaxies.

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

Galaxy-Wide Shocks in Late-Merger Stage Luminous Infrared Galaxies 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 Galaxy-Wide Shocks in Late-Merger Stage Luminous Infrared Galaxies, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Galaxy-Wide Shocks in Late-Merger Stage Luminous Infrared Galaxies will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-717527

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