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Session 49 - Starburst Galaxies.
Display session, Tuesday, January 16
North Banquet Hall, Convention Center
We have observed 12 FIR (40-120\mum) luminous galaxies at 100\mum with the University of Texas 2x10 bolometer array on the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. The high spatial resolution allows us to determine the source of the FIR flux. Because we resolve or marginally resolve the central core in 3/4 of our sample and observe substantial disk emission from several galaxies, we assume that for most FIR luminous galaxies: 1. the FIR luminosities are dominated by starbursts or other dust heating mechanisms which can heat dust on a large spatial scale, and 2. contributions to the FIR flux from the host galaxy can be signifigant. The sizes we ascertain for the resolved galaxies also allow us to estimate an optical depth at 100\mum and (assuming Milky Way constants for A_V/\tau_100 and N_H/A_V) the mass of the gas associated with the warm dust that is responsible for the FIR flux. The mass of the gas associated with the warm dust and the warm dust mass (from IRAS 60 and 100\mum measurements), with a few assumptions, let us determine that FIR luminous galaxies probably contain substantial amounts of cold dust (20K or less) that adds little to the FIR flux.
