Related papers: How ubiquitous are massive starbursts in interacti…
We investigate the influence of interactions on the star formation by studying a sample of almost 1500 of the nearest galaxies, all within a distance of ~45 Mpc. We define the massive star formation rate (SFR), as measured from far-IR…
The high-density environment of galaxy clusters is ripe for collisional encounters of galaxies. While the large velocity dispersion of clusters was originally thought to preclude slow encounters, the infall of smaller groups into the…
The interplay between stellar populations and gas in local starburst galaxies is analyzed using images from the Hubble Space Telescope to map the ages of the young stellar components and to isolate the contribution of shocks on spatial…
The physical origin of enhanced star formation activity in interacting galaxies remains an open question. Knowing whether starbursts are triggered by an increase of the quantity of dense gas or an increase of the star formation efficiency…
Tidal interactions of galaxies in galaxy clusters have been proposed as one potential explanation of the morphology-density relation at low masses. The efficiency of tidal transformation is expected to depend strongly on the orbit of a…
We study galaxy pairs in the field selected from the 100 K public release of the 2dF galaxy redshift survey. Our analysis provides a well defined sample of 1258 galaxy pairs, a large database suitable for statistical studies of galaxy…
After a recall of fundamental concepts used in galactic dynamics, we review observational facts as well as results of orbit theory and numerical simulations which suggest long-term evolution of galaxies. Dynamical interactions between…
Globular clusters were thought to be simple stellar populations, but recent photometric and spectroscopic evidence suggests that the clusters' early formation history was more complicated. In particular, clusters show star-to-star abundance…
Warps are common features in both stellar and gaseous disks of nearby spiral galaxies with the latter usually easier to detect. Several theories have been proposed in the literature to explain their formation and prevalence, including tidal…
Galaxy mergers and interactions have long been suggested as a significant driver of galaxy evolution. However, the exact extent to which mergers enhance star formation and AGN activity has been challenging to establish observationally. In…
Nearly all of the initial angular momentum of the matter that goes into each forming star must somehow be removed or redistributed during the formation process. The possible transport mechanisms and the possible fates of the excess angular…
Observations of intensely bright star-forming galaxies both close by and in the distant Universe at first glance seem to emphasize their similarity. But look a little closer, and differences emerge.
We study star formation in a sample of 345 galaxies in 167 pairs and compact groups drawn from the original CfA2 Redshift Survey and from a follow-up search for companions. We construct our sample with attention to including pairs with…
Massive clusters are now seen to form easily in interacting and merging galaxies, making these excellent environments for studying the properties of young clusters. New observations of the Antennae (NGC 4038/39) show that the most luminous…
We perform an statistical analysis of galaxies in pairs in a Lambda-CDM scenario by using the chemical GADGET-2 of Scannapieco et al. (2005) in order to study the effects of galaxy interactions on colours and metallicities. We find that…
The most extreme starbursts occur in galaxy mergers, and it is now acknowledged that dynamical triggering has a primary importance in star formation. This triggering is due partly to the enhanced velocity dispersion provided by…
We compare the UV-optical colors of a well-defined set of optically-selected pre-merger interacting galaxy pairs with those of normal spirals. The shorter wavelength colors show a larger dispersion for the interacting galaxies than for the…
Galactic collisions trigger a number of phenomena, such as transportation inward of gas from distances of up to kiloparsecs from the center of a galaxy to the nuclear region, fuelling a central starburst or nuclear activity. The inverse…
Young, massive star clusters are the most notable and significant end products of violent star-forming episodes triggered by galaxy collisions, mergers, and close encounters. Their contribution to the total luminosity induced by such…
A review of gravitational and hydrodynamical processes during formation of clusters and evolution of galaxies is given. Early, at the advent of N-body computer simulations, the importance of tidal fields in galaxy encounters has been…