An infrared study of local galaxy mergers

Abstract

We combine a large, homogeneous sample of $\sim$3000 local mergers with the Imperial IRAS Faint Source Redshift Catalogue (IIFSCz), to perform a blind far-infrared (FIR) study of the local merger population. The IRAS-detected mergers are mostly ($98\%$) spiral-spiral systems, residing in low density environments, a median FIR luminosity of $10^{11}{L}_{\odot }$ (which translates to a median star formation rate of around 15$M_{\odot }y{r}^{-1}$). The FIR luminosity -- and therefore the star formation rate -- shows little correlation with group richness and scales with the total stellar mass of the system, with little or no dependence on the merger mass ratio. In particular, minor mergers (mass ratios $<1:3$) are capable of driving strong star formation (between 10 and $173M_{\odot }y{r}^{-1}$) and producing systems that are classified as LIRGs, luminous infrared galaxies ($65\%$ of our LIRGs are minor mergers), with some minor-merging systems being close to the ultra luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) limit. Optical emission line ratios indicate that the AGN fraction increases with increasing FIR luminosity, with all ULIRG mergers having some form of AGN activity. Finally, we estimate that the LIRG-to-ULIRG transition along a merger sequence typically takes place over a relatively short timescale of $\sim$160 Myr.

arXiv comment7 pages, 7 Figues, Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

References in corpus (56)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology
• Star Formation in Galaxies Along the Hubble Sequence
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Host Galaxies of AGN
• Energy input from quasars regulates the growth and activity of black holes and their host galaxies
• Final Results from the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project to Measure the Hubble Constant
• Interstellar Dust Grains
• The Host Galaxies and Classification of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Evolutionary population synthesis: models, analysis of the ingredients and application to high-z galaxies
• Gasdynamics and Starbursts in Major Mergers
• The reversal of the star formation-density relation in the distant universe
• The Sixth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Galaxy Zoo : Morphologies derived from visual inspection of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Interpreting the Cosmic Infrared Background: Constraints on the Evolution of the Dust Enshrouded Star Formation Rate
• Galaxy Groups in the SDSS DR4: I. The Catalogue and Basic Properties
• The SAURON project - V. Integral-field emission-line kinematics of 48 elliptical and lenticular galaxies
• The Cosmic Infrared Background: Measurements and Implications
• The Spectrum of the Extragalactic Far Infrared Background from the COBE Firas Observations
• New Interstellar Dust Models Consistent with Extinction, Emission, and Abundance Constraints
• The Cosmic Infrared Background Resolved by Spitzer. Contributions of Mid-Infrared Galaxies to the Far-Infrared Background
• GOALS: The Great Observatories All-Sky LIRG Survey
• Kinematic Structure of Merger Remnants
• Cosmological Parameter Extraction from the First Season of Observations with DASI
• Cosmic Histories of Stars, Gas, Heavy Elements, and Dust
• Evidence for a non-zero Lambda and a low matter density from a combined analysis of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies
• The Relation Between Quasar and Merging Galaxy Luminosity Functions and the Merger-Induced Star Formation Rate of the Universe
• Galaxy Pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - V. Tracing changes in star formation rate and metallicity out to separations of 80 kpc
• Timing the starburst-AGN connection
• The Metallicity Evolution of Interacting Galaxies
• The effect of environment on the UV colour-magnitude relation of early-type galaxies
• Galaxy Zoo: The properties of merging galaxies in the nearby Universe - local environments, colours, masses, star-formation rates and AGN activity
• Galaxy Zoo: the fraction of merging galaxies in the SDSS and their morphologies
• Photometric redshifts in the SWIRE Survey
• Mid-Infrared Properties of Nearby Luminous Infrared Galaxies I: Spitzer IRS Spectra for the GOALS Sample
• Mid-Infrared Spectral Diagnostics of Luminous Infrared Galaxies
• Dynamical properties of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies I: Mass ratio conditions for ULIRG activity in interacting pairs
• Do Moderate-Luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei Suppress Star Formation?
• The role of minor mergers in the recent star formation history of early-type galaxies
• The importance of minor-merger-driven star formation and black-hole growth in disk galaxies
• C-GOALS: Chandra observations of a complete sample of luminous infrared galaxies from the IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Survey
• The Nuclear Structure in Nearby Luminous Infrared Galaxies: HST NICMOS Imaging of the GOALS Sample
• Moving Mesh Cosmology: Properties of Gas Disks
• The significant contribution of minor mergers to the cosmic star formation budget
• Major Galaxy Mergers and the Growth of Supermassive Black Holes in Quasars
• Local Luminous Infrared Galaxies. I. Spatially resolved observations with Spitzer/IRS
• Environmental Dependence of Local Luminous Infrared Galaxies
• Heavily Obscured AGN in Star-Forming Galaxies at z~2
• The merger-driven evolution of warm infrared luminous galaxies
• A simple model for AGN feedback in nearby early-type galaxies
• Systematic Trends In Sloan Digital Sky Survey Photometric Data
• The Imperial IRAS-FSC Redshift Catalogue (IIFSCz)
• Feedback-Driven Evolution of the Far-Infrared Spectral Energy Distributions of Luminous and Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies
• Spheroidal post-mergers in the local Universe
• Groups in the Millennium Simulation and in SDSS DR7
• Local Luminous Infrared Galaxies: Spatially resolved mid-infrared observations with Spitzer/IRS

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Early- and late-stage mergers among main sequence and starburst galaxies at 0.2<z<2
• The Effect of Galaxy Interactions on Molecular Gas Properties
• After The Fall: The Dust and Gas in E+A Post-Starburst Galaxies
• The limited role of galaxy mergers in driving stellar mass growth over cosmic time
• CO, H2O, H2O+ line and dust emission in a z = 3.63 strongly lensed starburst merger at sub-kiloparsec scales
• Galaxy Zoo: major galaxy mergers are not a significant quenching pathway
• [Ultra] Luminous Infrared Galaxies selected at 90 $\mu$m in the AKARI deep field: a study of AGN types contributing to their infrared emission
• Effects of galaxy environment on merger fraction
• CO Tully-Fisher Relation of Star-forming Galaxies at z=0.05-0.3
• The Subtle Effects of Mergers on Star Formation in Nearby Galaxies
• Gemini IFU, VLA, and HST observation of the OH Megamaser Galaxy IRAS17526+3253
• A Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach for measurement of jet precession in radio-loud active galactic nuclei
• Clusters, Clumps, Dust, & Gas (CCDG) in NGC1614: Bench-marking Cluster Demographics in Extreme Systems