Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-gr6zb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-23T02:57:18.771Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Stellar populations in starburst galaxies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2016

Robert D. Joseph
Robert D. Joseph*
Affiliation:
Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Many galaxies emit a dominant fraction of their bolometric luminosity in the infrared. The small mass-luminosity ratios suggest that these infrared luminosities cannot be sustained by a normal stellar population over a Hubble time. The commonly held explanation is that there has been a burst of star formation sufficiently recently that the full spectrum of the initial mass function up to the highest mass stars is contributing to the luminosity. Starburst galaxies therefore provide laboratories for studying the upper end of the initial mass function.

After a briefly summarizing studies of the IMF in the solar neighborhood and in nearby ‘normal’ galaxies, I will turn to studies of environments in which there appears to be evidence for a somewhat different IMF, viz., in starburst galaxies. I will discuss infrared spectroscopic diagnostics of a sample of the most luminous starburst galaxies and what this implies for the IMFs in these ‘violent’ star formation events.

Type
Part 5. Wolf-Rayet stars and other massive stars in starburst galaxies: the case of Wolf-Rayet galaxies (integrated spectra)
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 193: Wolf-Rayet Phenomena in Massive Stars and Starburst Galaxies , 1999 , pp. 568 - 577
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1999 

References

Balzano, V.A. 1983, ApJ 268, 602 Google Scholar
Basu, S., Rana, N.C. 1992, ApJ 393, 373 Google Scholar
Doyon, R., Joseph, R.D., Wright, G.S. 1994, ApJ 421, 101 Google Scholar
Goldader, J.G., Joseph, R.D., Doyon, R., Sanders, D.B. 1997a, ApJS 108, 449 Google Scholar
Goldader, J.G., Joseph, R.D., Doyon, R., Sanders, D.B. 1997b, ApJ 474, 104 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harwit, M., Pacini, F. 1975, ApJ 200, L127 Google Scholar
Ho, P.T.P., Beck, S.C., Turner, J.L. 1990, ApJ 349, 57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, D.A, O'Neil, E.J., Lynds, R., Shaya, E.J., Groth, E.J., Holtzman, J.A. 1996, ApJ 459, L27 Google Scholar
Joseph, R.D., Meikle, W.P., Robertson, N.A., Wright, G.S. 1984, MNRAS 209, 111 Google Scholar
Joseph, R.D., Wright, G.S. 1985, MNRAS 214, 87 Google Scholar
Kennicutt, R.C. 1998, in: Friedli, D., Martinet, L. & Pfenniger, D. (eds.) Galaxies, Interactions and Induced Star Formation (Berlin: Springer), p. 1 Google Scholar
Kennicutt, R.C., Tamblyn, P., Congdon, C.W. 1994, ApJ 435, 22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroupa, P., Tout, C.A., Gilmore, G. 1993, MNRAS 262, 545 Google Scholar
Larson, R.B., Tinsley, B.M. 1978, ApJ 219, 46 Google Scholar
Leitherer, C., Heckman, T.M. 1995, ApJS 96, 9 Google Scholar
Massey, P., Johnson, K.E., DeGioia-Eastwood, K. 1995, ApJ 454, 151 Google Scholar
Parker, J.W., Garmany, C.D. 1993, AJ 106, 1471 Google Scholar
Rieke, G.H., Low, F.J. 1972, ApJ 176, L95 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rieke, G.H., Lebofsky, M.J., Thompson, R.I., Low, F.J., Tokunaga, A.T. 1972, ApJ 176, L95 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rieke, G.H. 1991, in: Leitherer, C., Walborn, N., Heckman, T. & Norman, C. (eds.) Massive Stars in Starbursts (Cambridge: CUP), p. 205 Google Scholar
Sanders, D.B., Mirabel, I.F. 1996, ARA&A 34, 749 Google Scholar
Scalo, J.M. 1986, Fund. Cosmol. Phys. 11, 1 Google Scholar
Scoville, N., Young, J.S. 1983, ApJ 265, 148 Google Scholar
Weedman, D.W., Feldman, F.R., Balzano, V.A., Ramsey, L.W., Sramek, R.A., Wu, C.-C. 1981, ApJ 248, 105 Google Scholar
Wright, G.S., Joseph, R.D., Robertson, N.A., James, P.A., Meikle, W.P.S. 1988, MNRAS 233, 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar