Recent Star Formation in the Extreme Outer Disk of M83
Abstract
Ultraviolet imaging with the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) has revealed an extensive sample of UV-bright stellar complexes in the extreme outer disk of M83, extending to about four times the radius where the majority of HII regions are detected (R_HII = 5.1' or 6.6 kpc). These sources are typically associated with large-scale filamentary HI structures in the warped outer disk of M83, and are distributed beyond the galactocentric radii at which molecular ISM has yet been detected. We present measured properties of these stellar complexes, including FUV and NUV magnitudes and local gas surface density. Only a subset of the outer disk UV sources have corresponding HII regions detected in H-alpha imaging, consistent with a sample of mixed age in which some sources are a few Myr old and others are much more evolved (~ 10^8 yr).
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0411306,
title = {Recent Star Formation in the Extreme Outer Disk of M83},
author = {D. A. Thilker and L. Bianchi and S. Boissier and A. Gil de Paz and B. F. Madore and C. Martin and G. R. Meurer and S. G. Neff and M. Rich and D. Schiminovich and M. Seibert and T. K. Wyder and T. A. Barlow and Y. Byun and J. Donas and K. Forster and P. G. Friedman and T. M. Heckman and P. N. Jelinsky and Y. Lee and R. F. Malina and B. Milliard and P. Morrissey and O. H. W. Siegmund and T. Small and A. S. Szalay and B. Y. Welsh},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0411306},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
This paper will be published as part of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) Astrophysical Journal Letters Special Issue. Links to the full set of papers will be available at http://www.galex.caltech.edu/PUBLICATIONS/ after November 22, 2004