Star formation in close pairs selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

By B. Nikolic, H. Cullen, P. Alexander. 2004

134 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The effect of galaxy interactions on star formation has been investigated using Data Release 1 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Both the imaging and spectroscopy data products have been used to construct a catalogue of nearest companions to a volume limited (0:03< z< 0:1) sample of galaxies drawn from the main galaxy sample of SDSS. Of the 13973 galaxies in the volume limited sample, we have identified 12492 systems with companions at projected separations less than 300 kpc. Star-formation rates for the volume-limited sample have been calculated from extinction and aperture corrected Hα luminosities and, where available, IRAS data. Specific star formation rates were calculated by estimating galaxy masses from z-band luminosities, and r-band concentration indices were used as an indicator of morphological class. The mean specific star-formation rate is found to be strongly enhanced for projected separations of less than 30 kpc. For late-type galaxies the correlation extends out to projected separations of 300 kpc and is most pronounced in actively star-forming systems. The specific star-formation rate is observed to decrease with increasing recessional velocity difference, but the magnitude of this effect is small compared to that associated with the projected separation. We also observe a tight relationship between the concentration index and pair separation; the mean concentration index is largest for pairs with separations of approximately 75 kpc and declines rapidly for separations smaller than this. This is interpreted as being due to the presence of tidally-triggered nuclear starbursts in close pairs. Further, we find no dependence of star formation enhancement on the morphological type or mass of the companion galaxy.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c9215b4d3e696d89ffbf21128788ee0dc2d7acae

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Instrumentation

Citations in the corpus

Minor Galaxy Interactions: Star Formation Rates and Galaxy Properties (2007, methodology): “Nikolic et al. (2004) discuss the use of the concentration index as a morphological indicator for interacting galaxies.”
Metallicity and Nuclear Star Formation in Nearby Galaxy Pairs: Evidence for Tidally Induced Gas Flows (2005, background): “1988; Donzelli & Pastoriza 1997; Barton Gillespie et al. 2003; Nikolic et al. 2004, and references therein).”
Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – II. The effect of environment on interactions (2010, background): “A number of works have previously found that galaxies with a close companion have higher central concentrations (e.g. Nikolic et al. 2004; Li et al. 2008).”
Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – V. Tracing changes in star formation rate and metallicity out to separations of 80 kpc (2012, background): “Galaxies in pairs show enhanced SFRs out to separations of ∼ 30 h−170 kpc, with the strongest enhancement at the smallest separations, and a smooth decline to a fiducial value (Lambas et al. 2003; Alonso et al. 2006; Nikolic et al. 2004; Ellison et al. 2008b; Li et al. 2008).”
Interaction-induced star formation in a complete sample of 105 nearby star-forming galaxies (2007, background): “In addition, some studies investigated how galaxy properties such as concentration (Nikolic et al. 2004), luminosity ratio (Woods et al. 2006; Woods & Geller 2007), stellar mass ratio (Ellison et al. 2008), colour and active galactic nuclei (AGN) activity (Woods & Geller 2007) depend on separation.”
GALAXY PAIRS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY. I. STAR FORMATION, ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS FRACTION, AND THE LUMINOSITY/MASS–METALLICITY RELATION (2008, background): “These results are indicative of enhanced star formation, a scenario supported by high equivalent widths of Hα emission when spectra are available 1877 (e.g., Kennicutt et al. 1987; Barton et al. 2000; Lambas et al. 2003; Alonso et al. 2004; Nikolic et al. 2004).”
The effect of galaxy mass ratio on merger-driven starbursts (2007, methodology): “…indicate a clear anticorrelation between projected galaxy pair separation and star formation indicators in the optical (Barton et al. 2000; Nikolic et al. 2004; Lambas et al. 2003; Sol Alonso et al. 2006; Barton et al. 2007; Ellison et al. 2007) and the infrared (Geller et al. 2006; Smith…”
Feedback in simulations of disc-galaxy major mergers (2005, background): “…is supported by a variety of observational data which links morphologically disturbed or outright merging galaxies to enhanced levels of star formation (e.g., Larson & Tinsley 1978; Joseph & Wright 1985; Kennicutt et al. 1987; Barton Gillespie et al. 2003; Lambas et al. 2003; Nikolic et al. 2004).”