Distorted HI Gas in the Widely Separated LIRG Arp 256

Abstract

We present new interferometric HI and CO (1-0) observations of the luminous infrared source, Arp 256. Arp 256 consists of two spiral galaxies in an early stage of merging, with a projected nuclear separation of 29 kpc (54") and an infrared luminosity of 2.0E11 L_sun. Despite the large separation of the galaxies' nuclei and mildly disrupted stellar components, the HI disks are found to be strongly disrupted, and the southern galaxy in Arp 256 shows an elevated star formation efficiency, which is consistent with a nuclear starburst. Both of these results run contrary to expectations, posing interesting questions on the physical mechanisms involved in stimulating star formation during an interaction.

19 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in AJ. Author added. Full resolution figures available at http://astro.uchicago.edu/home/web/jchen/arp256

References in corpus (2)

• Molecular Gas and the Modest Star Formation Efficiency in the ``Antennae'' Galaxies: Arp~244=NGC 4038/39
• Gas Distribution and Starburst Activity in the Widely Separated Interacting Galaxies NGC 6670

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Metallicity and Nuclear Star Formation in Nearby Galaxy Pairs: Evidence for Tidally Induced Gas Flows
• Gas-Phase Oxygen Gradients in Strongly Interacting Galaxies: I. Early-Stage Interactions
• The Global Star Formation Laws of Galaxies from a Radio Continuum Perspective
• Extra-Nuclear Starbursts: Young Luminous Hinge Clumps in Interacting Galaxies
• Azimuthal and Kinematic Segregation of Neutral and Molecular Gas in Arp 118: The Yin-Yang Galaxy NGC 1144
• Resolved properties of a luminous "hinge clump" in the compact group of galaxies NGC\,6845