The Role of Starbursts in the Formation of Galaxies & Active Galactic Nuclei

Abstract

Starbursts are episodes of intense star-formation in the central regions of galaxies, and are the sites of roughly 25% of the high-mass star-formation in the local universe. In this contribution I review the role starbursts play in the formation and evolution of galaxies, the intergalactic medium, and active galactic nuclei. Four major conclusions are drawn. 1) Starburst galaxies are good analogues (in fact, the only plausible local analogues) to the known population of star-forming galaxies at high-redshift. 2) Integrated over cosmic time, supernova-driven galactic-winds (`superwinds') play an essential role in the evolution of galaxies and the inter-galactic medium. 3) Circumnuclear starbursts are an energetically-significant component of the Seyfert phenomenon. 4) The evolution of the population of the host galaxies of radio-quiet quasars is significantly different than that of powerful radio galaxies, and is at least qualitatively consistent with the standard picture of the hierarchical assembly of massive galaxies at relatively late times.

16 pages, 4 figures, Royal Society discussion meeting `The formation of galaxies'

References in corpus (18)

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• The Cosmic Baryon Budget
• Dust Absorption And The Ultraviolet Luminosity Density At z \approx 3 As Calibrated By Local Starburst Galaxies
• The Imprint of Galaxy Formation on X-ray Clusters
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• The history of star formation in dusty galaxies
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• A comparative HST imaging study of the host galaxies of radio-quiet quasars, radio-loud quasars and radio galaxies: Paper I
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• The Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Properties of Local Starbursts: Implications at High-Redshift
• Ultraviolet-Optical observations of the Seyfert 2 Galaxies NGC 7130, NGC 5135 and IC 3639: Implications for the Starburst-AGN Connection
• The black hole mass distribution in early-type galaxies: cusps in HST photometry interpreted through adiabatic black hole growth
• The Evolution of Dust Opacity in Galaxies
• The Stellar Content of Active Galaxies
• An Infrared Search for Star-Forming Galaxies at z > 2
• Infrared emission-line galaxies associated with damped Lyman-alpha and strong metal absorber redshifts
• Adaptive Optics observations of LBQS 0108+0028: K-band detection of the host galaxy of a radio-quiet QSO at z=2
• Galaxies and Large Scale Structure at z~3

Cited by in corpus (5)

• On the Maximum Luminosity of Galaxies and Their Central Black Holes: Feedback From Momentum-Driven Winds
• The Star Formation Rate and Dense Molecular Gas in Galaxies
• A Chandra Study of Sgr A East: A Supernova Remnant Regulating The Activity Of Our Galactic Center?
• Nuclear and global X-ray properties of LINER galaxies: Chandra and BeppoSAX results for Sombrero and NGC 4736
• Disc-halo gas outflows driven by stellar clusters as seen in multiwavelength tracers