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Fernanda Urrutia |
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"Characterizing Star-formation in the Intergalactic Medium as
Products of Galaxy Encounters" |
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We present GALEX FUV and NUV observations of 25 interacting systems from the Rogues Gallery. We identify 263 star-forming regions, which coincide with of HI tidal debris, spanning a wide range of ages (1-40 Myr) and masses (101-7 Msun). We also obtained new GMOS/Gemini spectra of Tidal Dwarf Galaxy candidates in the groups HCG92 and HCG100. We find that HCG92 has five while HCG100 has two Tidal Dwarf Galaxy candidates. These have masses of 105-6 Msun and mostly young ages (< 10 Myr), while having high metallicities (close to solar). We compared the properties of our sample of 263 star-forming regions with those for other regions around the interacting system M81/M82, and with other known tidal dwarf galaxies in compact groups. We find that the mass distribution of the systems in our sample is similar to that of regions around M81/M82. Our main result is that compact groups of galaxies are more likely to host tidal dwarf galaxies than pairs and interacting galaxies. We argue that tidal dwarf galaxies in compact groups may survive for longer time given that the group potential may be able to drive them away from the nearby proximity of their progenitor galaxies, also suggested by simulations. |