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V. Charmandaris (Cornell University, USA), O. Laurent (MPE, Germany), I.F. Mirabel, P. Gallais (CEA/DMS/DAPNIA/Sap, France)
I will present a review on the mid-IR (5--16 microns) spectral imaging of a sequence of nearby interacting galaxies observed by ISOCAM, the mid-IR camera on board ISO. The galaxies are part of the well known Toomre's ``merger sequence'' which was defined as a sample of galaxies depicting progressive snapshots in the time evolution of a merging event. It will be shown that the ratio of the 15 to 7 micron flux correlates well with the IRAS colors of the galaxies, and that using it in conjunction with the [NeII] and [NeIII] lines one can trace the intensity of the radiation field in a starburst.
This suggests that even though the bolometric luminosity of merging luminous infrared galaxies is dominated by emission at wavelengths longer than 40 microns, the study of the mid-IR spectral energy distribution is a powerful tool in understanding their global star formation history.
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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: vassilis@astro.cornell.edu