The Dust Content of the Lowest Metallicity Star Forming Galaxies

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Scientific paper

We propose to measure dust masses for the lowest metallicity star forming galaxies known in the local universe. There are 15 galaxies with 12 + log(O/H) at or below 7.8 that have been detected at 70 microns, only three of which have significant detections at 160 microns in the shallow observations currently in the Spitzer archive. Without both 70 and 160 micron measurements, we are unable to compute dust temperatures and hence masses for the most metal poor star-forming galaxies. Star-forming galaxies with metallicities this low are likely undergoing their first significant episode of star formation, providing us local analogs of the galaxies forming in the early universe. Recent studies indicate that the dust properties at very low metallicity are significantly different from those in galaxies with metallicities larger than ~1/4 solar. Spitzer's new enhanced photometry mode at 160 microns provides us an opportunity to obtain the first detections of these galaxies beyond 70 microns, providing a critical anchor at the low-metallicity end of dust properties in nearby star-forming galaxies. 11 of the galaxies in our sample are amenable to detection at 160 microns - 3 have been detected in shallow observations and 1 (I Zw 18 - Bolatto et al.) will be observed soon. We propose to observe the other 7.

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