On the triggering of extreme starburst events in low-metallicity galaxies: a deep search for companions of Green Peas

Abstract

Green pea galaxies are starbursting, low-mass galaxies that are good analogues to star-forming galaxies in the early universe. We perform a survey of 23 Green Peas using the MUSE Integral Field Unit spectrograph on the VLT to search for companion galaxies. The survey reaches an average point-source depth of $\sim 10^{-18}$ erg cm${}^{-2}$ s${}^{-1}$ for emission lines. The MUSE field of view allows us to probe a 1$\times$1 arcmin${}^2$ field around these galaxies and to search their surroundings for faint companions that could have interacted with them and induced their starburst episodes. We search for companions using a variety of methods including template matching to emission and absorption line spectra. When restricting the search to the same physical area (R = 78 kpc) for all galaxies, we find that the fraction of green pea galaxies with companions is $0.11_{-0.05}^{+0.07}$. We define a control sample of star-forming galaxies with the same stellar masses and redshifts as the green peas, but consistent with the star-formation main sequence. We find that green pea galaxies are as likely to have companions as the control sample; for which the fraction of objects with companions is $0.08_{-0.03}^{+0.05}$. Given that we do not find statistical evidence for an elevated companion fraction in the green peas in this study, we argue that the ``companions" are likely unrelated to the bursts in these galaxies.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (57)

• Starburst99: Synthesis Models for Galaxies with Active Star Formation
• Binary companions of evolved stars in APOGEE DR14: Search method and catalog of ~5,000 companions
• CANDELS: The Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey
• CANDELS: The Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey - The Hubble Space Telescope Observations, Imaging Data Products and Mosaics
• Galaxy Zoo : Morphologies derived from visual inspection of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The MUSE second-generation VLT instrument
• The 3D-HST Survey: Hubble Space Telescope WFC3/G141 grism spectra, redshifts, and emission line measurements for $\sim 100,000$ galaxies
• Galaxy Zoo Green Peas: Discovery of A Class of Compact Extremely Star-Forming Galaxies
• Galaxy Pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey I: Star Formation, AGN Fraction, and the Luminosity/Mass-Metallicity Relation
• First Results from the X-ray and Optical Survey of the Chandra Deep Field South
• Keck Spectroscopy of 3<z<7 Faint Lyman Break Galaxies: The Importance of Nebular Emission in Understanding the Specific Star Formation Rate and Stellar Mass Density
• The Major and Minor Galaxy Merger Rates at z < 1.5
• The Data Processing Pipeline for the MUSE Instrument
• Lyman-alpha and CIII] Emission in z=7-9 Galaxies: Accelerated Reionization Around Luminous Star Forming Systems?
• Detection of high Lyman continuum leakage from four low-redshift compact star-forming galaxies
• Palomar/Las Campanas Imaging Atlas of Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies: I. Images and integrated photometry
• Star formation and mass assembly in high redshift galaxies
• Lyman continuum leaking from the compact star-forming dwarf galaxy J0925+1403
• Spectroscopic detection of CIV in a galaxy at z=7.045: Implications for the ionizing spectra of reionization-era galaxies
• New Techniques for Relating Dynamically Close Galaxy Pairs to Merger and Accretion Rates : Application to the SSRS2 Redshift Survey
• Green Pea Galaxies and cohorts: Luminous Compact Emission-Line Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• History of Galaxy Interactions and their Impact on Star Formation over the Last 7 Gyr from GEMS
• Z > 7 galaxies with red Spitzer/IRAC [3.6]-[4.5] colors in the full CANDELS data set: the brightest-known galaxies at Z ~ 7-9 and a probable spectroscopic confirmation at Z=7.48
• The Star Formation Main Sequence in the Hubble Space Telescope Frontier Fields
• Galaxy Interactions Trigger Rapid Black Hole Growth: an unprecedented view from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey
• On the oxygen and nitrogen chemical abundances and the evolution of the "green pea" galaxies
• Observational constraints on the merger history of galaxies since $z\approx 6$: Probabilistic galaxy pair counts in the CANDELS fields
• The Low-Redshift Lyman Continuum Survey I: New, Diverse Local Lyman-Continuum Emitters
• The Low-Redshift Lyman Continuum Survey II: New Insights into LyC Diagnostics
• The Nature of Starbursts : II. The Duration of Starbursts in Dwarf Galaxies
• The Recent Star Formation Histories of M81 Group Dwarf Irregular Galaxies
• Less than 10 percent of star formation in z=0.6 massive galaxies is triggered by major interactions
• The star formation history and metal content of the "Green Peas". New detailed GTC-OSIRIS spectrophotometry of three galaxies
• Evidence for a Hard Ionizing Spectrum from a z=6.11 Stellar Population
• The MUSE-Wide Survey: Survey Description and First Data Release
• A Comparison of UIT Far-Ultraviolet and H alpha Star Formation Rates
• HST/WFPC2 Imaging of the QDOT Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy Sample
• The MUSE-Wide Survey: A first catalogue of 831 emission line galaxies
• The environment of HII galaxies
• 3D-HST Grism Spectroscopy of a Gravitationally Lensed, Low-metallicity Starburst Galaxy at z=1.847
• The H$\alpha$ Luminosity Function and Star Formation Rate at $z\approx 0.24$ in the Cosmos 2 Square-Degree Field
• Early- and late-stage mergers among main sequence and starburst galaxies at 0.2<z<2
• Strong Lyman continuum emitting galaxies show intense CIV 1550 emission
• New criteria for the selection of galaxy close pairs from cosmological simulations: evolution of the major and minor merger fraction in MUSE deep fields
• Optical Imaging of Very Luminous Infrared Galaxy Systems: Photometric Properties and Late Evolution
• The HI Companions of HII Galaxies and Low Surface Brightness Dwarf Galaxies
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: Galaxy Pair Fraction and Correlated Active Galactic Nuclei
• Infrared Properties of Close Pairs of Galaxies
• Evolution of the Halpha luminosity function
• The Semi-forbidden CIII]$\lambda$1909Å~ Emission in the Rest-Ultraviolet Spectra of Green Pea Galaxies
• The Local Environment of HII Galaxies
• Dark satellites and the morphology of dwarf galaxies
• Mapping the properties of blue compact dwarf galaxies: integral field spectroscopy with PMAS
• Star formation in the nearby dwarf galaxy DDO 53: interplay between gas accretion and stellar feedback
• Unravelling the morphologies of Luminous Compact Galaxies using the HST/ACS GOODS survey
• The Spitzer-IRAC/MIPS Extragalactic survey (SIMES) in the South Ecliptic Pole field
• The evolution of baryonic mass function of galaxies to z=3

Cited by in corpus (5)

• A MUSE/VLT spatially resolved study of the emission structure of Green Pea galaxies
• The Ly$\alpha$ and Continuum Origins Survey. III. Investigating the Link between Galaxy Morphology, Merger Properties and LyC Escape
• A MaNGA view of isolated galaxy mergers in the star-forming Main Sequence
• IFUM Integrated Field Spectroscopy of Ten M104 Satellite Galaxy Candidates
• The Environments of Star-Forming Galaxies Detected in the SFACT Survey: Do Mergers and Interactions Drive the Star Formation?