Mergers play important roles in triggering the most active objects in the universe, including (U)LIRGs and QSOs. However, whether they are also important for the total stellar mass build-up in galaxies in general is unclear and controversial. The answer to that question depends on the merger rate and the average strength of merger induced star formation. In this talk, I will review studies on spatial density and sSFR enhancement of local mergers found in NIR/optical selected pair samples. In line with the current literature on galaxy formation/evolution, special attention will be paid to the dependence of the local merger rate and of the sSFR enhancement on four fundamental observables: (1) stellar mass, (2) mass ratio, (3) separation, and (4) environment.
@article{arxiv.1201.4898,
title = {NIR/Optical Selected Local Mergers --- Spatial Density and sSFR Enhancement},
author = {C. Kevin Xu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1201.4898},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
A review talk; 8 pages; to appear on the Conference Proceedings for "Galaxy Mergers in an Evolving Universe", held in Hualien, Taiwan (October 2011)