Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 1995
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1995aas...187.1105p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, 187th AAS Meeting, #11.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 27, p.1296
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
As a step in understanding the process of star formation in irregular galaxies, we have analysed the irregular galaxy Sextans A. Irregular galaxies provide star-forming systems that are unperturbed by spiral density waves. Sextans A is a tiny galaxy, 1.3 Mpc distant, just beyond the dynamic boundary of the Local Group. We studied the star formation properties of this galaxy using UBV and Hα images. Stars are not currently forming in the center of this galaxy, though they have in the past. The current star formation is in clumps in the outer parts of the galaxy and is not evenly distributed. The total Hα luminosity found for Sextans A is 9 x 10(38) erg/s, which corresponds to a star formation rate of 6 x 10(-3) Mmathordsun /yr for standard assumptions. The rate per unit area, within the Holmberg radius, is 6 x 10(-10) Mmathordsun /yr/pc(2) . Skillman et al. (1988) derived a total HI mass of 6 x 10(7) Mmathordsun . At its present rate, Sextans A will use up all of its gas in 12 x 10(9) yr, including the He contribution. We have also compared the star formation and gas density in Sextans A to critical gas surface density models (Toomre 1964, Quirk 1972, Kennicutt 1988). We used a published rotation curve to calculate the critical gas density necessary for the instabilities that produce star-forming clouds (Skillman et al. 1988). The ratio of observed to critical gas density is low in Sextans A, at the low end of values found by Kennicutt (1988) for spiral galaxies. The current star formation is located in the region of the galaxy with higher radially averaged observed gas densities relative to the critical density. This suggests that Sextans A has a difficult time forming gas clouds, resulting in an observed low star formation rate. This research was funded by the REU program at Northern Arizona University.
Hunter Deidre Ann
Plummer Julia D.
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