English

New Wolf-Rayet Galaxies with Detection of WC Stars

Astrophysics 2009-10-30 v1

Abstract

We report the discovery of two new Wolf-Rayet (WR) galaxies: Mrk~1039, and F08208++2816. Two broad WR bumps at 5808\AA~ and 4650\AA~ indicate the presence of WCE and WNL star population in all two sources. We also confirm the presenceof WR features in Mrk~35, previously detected in a different position. The observed equivalent width of the WR bump at 4650\AA~ and the derived number ratios of WR/(WR++O) imply that star formation in these sources takes place inshort burst duration. Comparisons with the recent models of WR populations in young starbursts with the observed EW(\HeII)/EW(\CIV)/EW(WRbump) and their relative intensitie provide an indication that the stellar initial mass function in some WR galaxies might not be Salpeter-like. It is interesting to find that the luminous IRAS source, F08208++2816, has little dust reddening, probably because of the existence of a powerful superwind. By comparisons with other starbursts observed with the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope, F08208++2816 as a merging system renders a chance to study the contribution from young starbursts to the UV background radiation in universe.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9809188,
  title  = {New Wolf-Rayet Galaxies with Detection of WC Stars},
  author = {J. H. Huang and Q. S. Gu and L. Ji and W. D. Li and J. Y. Wei and W. Zheng},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9809188},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

22 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables, accepted by The Astrophysical Journal