The Interaction Jigsaw: investigating star formation in interacting galaxies
subject: galaxies: interactions; galaxies: spiral; galaxies: star formation
description: Interaction between galaxies plays a pivotal role in their evolution. Ongoing star formation in spiral galaxies can be affected by these processes. Interacting galaxy pairs provide an opportunity to study these effects. We select a sample of interacting galaxies in field environments at various interaction stages and are nearly face-on and chose galaxy pairs NGC 2207/IC 2163, NGC 4017/4016 (ARP 305), and NGC 7753/7752 (ARP 86). We use the UltraViolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) onboard AstroSat to characterize the star-forming regions in the galaxy with a superior resolution of ? 1.4 arcsec. We identified and characterized star-forming regions in the UVIT images of the sample and correlated them with the neutral hydrogen (H I) distribution. We detected localized regions of enhancement in star formation surface density (?SFR) and distortions in the sample of galaxies. We found this consistent with the distribution of H I in the galaxy. These are possible evidence of past and ongoing interactions affecting the star formation properties in the galaxies. We then conducted a study to understand whether the observed enhancements hold true for a wider sample of interacting galaxies. We observe a moderate enhancement in the star formation rate (SFR) with the interaction class, with a maximum of 1.8 being in the merger class of galaxies. We studied the SFR enhancement for the main galaxies in our sample as a function of pair mass ratio and pair separation. We observe a strong anticorrelation between the SFR enhancement and pair mass ratio and no linear correlation between the enhancement and pair separation. This suggests that the enhancement in interaction-induced star formation may be more strongly influenced by the pair mass ratios, rather than the pair separation. We also infer that the pair separation can possibly act as a limiting parameter for the SFR enhancement. 2024 The Author(s).
creator: Robin T.; Kartha S.S.; Akhil Krishna R.; Krishnan U.; Mathew B.; Cysil T.B.; Patra N.N.; Shridharan B.
source: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol-534, No. 3, pp. 1902-1912.
publisher: Oxford University Press
date: 2024-01-01
rights: All Open Access; Gold Open Access
relation: ISSN: 358711; CODEN: MNRAA
format: Online
language: English
type: Article
coverage: Robin T., Department of Physics and Electronics, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, 560029, India; Kartha S.S., Department of Physics and Electronics, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, 560029, India; Akhil Krishna R., Department of Physics and Electronics, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, 560029, India; Krishnan U., Department of Physics and Electronics, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, 560029, India; Mathew B., Department of Physics and Electronics, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, 560029, India; Cysil T.B., Department of Physics and Electronics, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, 560029, India; Patra N.N., Department of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Indore, 453552, India; Shridharan B., Department of Physics and Electronics, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, 560029, India, Dept. of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai, 400005, India