English

The Massive Nearby SBNGs: Young Galaxies in Formation

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

We discuss the implications of the recent discovery that Starburst Nucleus Galaxies (SBNGs) have lower oxygen abundances than "normal galaxies" of the same morphological type. Our interpretation of this result is that SBNGs are young galaxies, still in the process of formation. We consider several alternatives, but none of them provides a viable explanation. This new result has important consequences for our understanding of galaxy evolution, as it confirms the scenario of hierarchical formation of galaxies, and explains recent observations of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9802285,
  title  = {The Massive Nearby SBNGs: Young Galaxies in Formation},
  author = {Roger Coziol and Thierry Contini and Emmanuel Davoust and Suzanne Considere},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9802285},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

5 pages with 1 figure. To appear in the proceedings of "Abundance profiles: diagnostic tools for galaxy history", eds. D. Friedli, M.G. Edmunds, C. Robert, L. Drissen, ASP Conference Series