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E. H. Wehner, J. S. Gallagher (U. of Wisconsin - Madison)
In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that mergers between galaxies, even minor mergers, have a significant role in the history of galaxy evolution. Cold dark matter, along with the theory of hierarchical merging, suggest that galaxies may have been formed through the coalescence of smaller associations of matter. While it is not clear that all galaxies do indeed form this way, minor mergers have been shown to cause strong starbursts in the main progenitor galaxy and some mergers are suspected to cause changes in Hubble type. In this pilot project we are studying the tidal debris of systems with evidence of recent merging in order to understand the origin of the debris and the stellar populations they contain. We present initial results from deep BVR photometry of several starbursting galaxies and their tidal features. We show a new tidal loop and present the possible merging history this suggests, along with our photometric results.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.