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Close Major-merger Pairs at $z=0$: Star-forming Galaxies with Pseudobulges

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2024-03-29 v1

Abstract

We present a study of star-forming galaxies (SFGs) with pseudobulges (bulges with S\'ersic index n<2\rm n < 2) in a local close major-merger galaxy pair sample (H-KPAIR). With data from new aperture photometries in the optical and near-infrared bands (aperture size of 7\;kpc) and from the literature, we find that the mean Age of central stellar populations in Spirals with pseudobulges is consistent with that of disky galaxies and is nearly constant against the bulge-to-total ratio (B/T). Paired Spirals have a slightly lower fraction of pure disk galaxies (B/T0.1\rm B/T \leq 0.1) than their counterparts in the control sample. Compared to SFGs with classical bulges, those with pseudobulges have a higher (>2  σ>2\;\sigma) mean of specific star formation rate (sSFR) enhancement (sSFRenh=0.33±0.07\rm sSFR_{enh} = 0.33\pm0.07 vs sSFRenh=0.12±0.06\rm sSFR_{enh} = 0.12\pm0.06) and broader scatter (by 1\sim 1\;dex). The eight SFGs that have the highest sSFRenh\rm sSFR_{enh} in the sample all have pseudobulges. A majority (69\%) of paired SFGs with strong enhancement (having sSFR more than 5 times the median of the control galaxies) have pseudobulges. The Spitzer data show that the pseudobulges in these galaxies are tightly linked to nuclear/circum-nuclear starbursts. Pseudobulge SFGs in S+S and in S+E pairs have significantly (>3  σ>3\;\sigma) different sSFR enhancement, with the means of sSFRenh=0.45±0.08\rm sSFR_{enh} = 0.45\pm0.08 and 0.04±0.11-0.04\pm0.11, respectively. We find a decrease in the sSFR enhancements with the density of the environment for SFGs with pseudobulges. Since a high fraction (5/11) of pseudobulge SFGs in S+E pairs are in rich groups/clusters (local density N1Mpc7\rm N_{1Mpc} \geq 7), the dense environment might be the cause for their low sSFRenh\rm sSFR_{enh}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2403.19212,
  title  = {Close Major-merger Pairs at $z=0$: Star-forming Galaxies with Pseudobulges},
  author = {Chuan He and Cong Kevin Xu and Ute Lisenfeld and Y Sophia Dai and Taotao Fang and Jia-Sheng Huang and Wei Wang and Qingzheng Yu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.19212},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in RAA, ?? pages, 10 figures, 4 tables