Bibcode
Knapen, J. H.; Cisternas, M.; Querejeta, M.
Bibliographical reference
Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics VIII, Proceedings of the XI Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society held on September 8-12, 2014, in Teruel, Spain, ISBN 978-84-606-8760-3. A. J. Cenarro, F. Figueras, C. Hernández-Monteagudo, J. Trujillo Bueno, and L. Valdivielso (eds.), p. 240-244
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5
2015
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
We investigate the influence of galaxy-galaxy interactions on the star
formation by studying a sample of almost 1500 of the nearest galaxies,
all within a distance of 40 Mpc. We calculate the relative enhancement
of the massive star formation rate (SFR), as measured from far-IR
emission, and the specific star formation rate (SSFR), which is the
former quantity normalised by the stellar mass of the galaxy. We do this
for each galaxy by normalising by the median SFR and SSFR values of
individual control populations of similar non-interacting galaxies. We
find that both the SFR and the SSFR are enhanced in interacting
galaxies, and more so as the degree of interaction is higher. The
increase is, however, moderate, reaching a maximum of a factor of 2.2
for the highest degree of interaction (mergers). We argue that this
study based on a representative sample of nearby galaxies should be used
to place strong constraints on studies based on samples of galaxies at
larger distances, beyond the local Universe.