Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
1997-11-03
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
8 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Proceedings of IAU Symp. 186 (Kyoto)
Scientific paper
HI observations have revealed large gaseous extensions in interacting and merging systems. The interstellar gas is obviously dragged out in tidal tails during an encounter, and the percentage of HI in the tails increases with the merging stage. However, the opposite is true for the molecular gas, which is observed highly concentrated towards the nuclei of interacting galaxies, amounting to a significant fraction of the dynamical mass. Statistically, there appears to be more gas observed in interacting galaxies than in normal, isolated ones. As N-body simulations show, the gas is driven inwards in the interaction process by the strong gravity torques, before being consumed through star formation in the triggered starbursts. We review here all observations that could bring more knowledge about the state of the gas in the outer parts of galaxies, and about accretion processes. The link with the observations of the Ly$\alpha$ absorbers at low and high redshifts is discussed.
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