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Session 49 - Starburst Galaxies.
Display session, Tuesday, January 16
North Banquet Hall, Convention Center
The nuclei of starburst galaxies are often obscured by dust and hence are probed best in non-visual wavelength regimes such as the infrared and radio. For example, radio studies of classical starburst galaxies such as NGC 253 and M82 have identified \sim 50 compact sources in each galaxy. One of the purposes of this type of observing program has been to classify the compact radio sources as H II regions or radio supernovae, and to estimate the supernova rates. If obtainable, spectral indices are used to identify the compact structures; otherwise supporting evidence or assumptions are needed.
NGC 660, located at a distance of 7.5 Mpc, is a strong candidate for a search for compact radio sources. It is a relatively strong infrared emitter, has far infrared colors similar to NGC 253 and M82, and shows several peaks in published Very Large Array (VLA) maps at 6 cm and 20 cm. We therefore observed NGC 660 at 3.6 cm in the A-configuration of the VLA on 1995 July 13--14. Total integration time on-source was 4.8 hrs. The image shows a large family (\sim 20) of compact radio structures with a flux density range of 0.1--3.4 mJy, three of which have fluxes > 2.0 mJy. The source luminosities are comparable to those of the stronger sources in M82 and NGC 253, typically a few times more powerful than Cas A. A number of the compact sources appear to lie along a ring projected against the more diffuse radio emission in the galaxy's nuclear region.
The work described in this paper was carried out by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
