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Session 76 - Star Formation in Galaxies.
Display session, Friday, January 09
Exhibit Hall,
Since it possesses both a prototypical Seyfert 2 nucleus and a luminous starburst disk and is relatively nearby (D \sim 15 Mpc), NGC1068 provides an excellent opportunity for a detailed study of the relationship between starburst and AGN activity. We present near--infrared (K band) spectra of 5 of the exceptionally luminous starburst knots located in the disk of NGC1068 and imaged by the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (Neff et al. 1994 ApJ 430 545, and references therein). The strengths of the CO bandhead features located between 2.3 and 2.4 \mum and the Br\gamma recombination line are used together with the far--ultraviolet and H\alpha morphologies to constrain the star formation histories of the individual knots. We find that 4 out of 5 of the knots contain young red supergiants and are \sim 10 Myr old. The remaining knot is characterized by weak CO absorption features and strong recombination line emission. We suggest that the star formation activity in this region of the disk is influenced by the central AGN.
