Speaker
Dr
Ed Elson
(University of Cape Town + South African Astronomical Observatory)
Description
Star formation is a major driver of galaxy evolution. A suite of star formation models is examined for two atypical star-forming dwarf galaxies in order to quantify the relationships between their star formation activity and the properties of their inter-stellar media. High-quality HI, far infrared and far-ultra violet imaging is used to accomplish this. The star formation threshold of each galaxy is shown to depend on global kinematics as well as the stellar and dark matter potentials. Alternatively, adopting the rotational shear as a characterisation of the global kinematics allows for accurate descriptions of the star formation.
Primary author
Dr
Ed Elson
(University of Cape Town + South African Astronomical Observatory)
Co-authors
Prof.
Erwin de Blok
(UCT)
Prof.
Renee Kraan-Korteweg
(UCT)
