Formation of molecular gas in the tidal debris of violent galaxy–galaxy interactions

Jonathan Braine (), Ute Lisenfeld, Pierre-Alain Due and Stéphane Leon
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Jonathan Braine: Observatoire de Bordeaux, UMR 5804, CNRS/INSU, BP89
Ute Lisenfeld: Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique
Pierre-Alain Due: Institute of Astronomy,
Stéphane Leon: ASIAA, Academia Sinica

Nature, 2000, vol. 403, issue 6772, 867-869

Abstract: Abstract In many gravitational interactions between galaxies, gas and stars that have been torn from the precursor galaxies can collect in tidal ‘tails’. Star formation begins anew in some of these regions, producing tidal dwarf galaxies1,2,3,4. Observations of these new galaxies provides insight into processes relevant to galaxy formation more generally, because the timescale of the interaction is well defined. But tracking the star formation process has hitherto been difficult because the tidal dwarf galaxies with young stars showed no evidence of the molecular gas out of which those young stars formed5,6,7,8. Here we report the discovery of molecular hydrogen (traced by carbon monoxide emission) in two tidal dwarf galaxies. In both cases, the concentration of molecular gas peaks at the same location as the maximum in atomic-hydrogen density, unlike the situation in most gas-rich galaxies. We infer from this that the molecular gas formed from the atomic hydrogen, rather than being torn in molecular form from the interacting galaxies. Star formation in the tidal dwarf galaxies therefore appears to mimic the process in normal spiral galaxies like our own.

Date: 2000
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DOI: 10.1038/35002521

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