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While major mergers and their tidal debris are well studied, they are lesscommon than minor mergers (mass ratios < 0.3). The peculiar spiral NGC 2782 isthe result of a merger between two disk galaxies with a mass ratio of ~4:1occurring ~200 Myr ago. This merger produced a molecular and H I-rich,optically bright eastern tail and an H I-rich, optically faint western tail.Non-detection of CO in the western tail by Braine et al. suggested that starformation had not yet begun to occur in that tidal tail. However, deepH{\alpha} narrowband images show evidence of recent star formation in thewestern tail. Across the entire western tail, we find the global star formationrate per unit area ({\Sigma}SFR) to be several orders of magnitude less thanexpected from the total gas density. Together with extended FUV+NUV emissionfrom Galaxy Evolution Explorer along the tail, this indicates a low global starformation efficiency in the tidal tail producing lower mass star clusters. TheH II region that we observed has a local (few-kiloparsec scale) {\Sigma}SFRfrom H{\alpha} that is less than that expected from the total gas density,which is consistent with other observations of tidal debris. The star formationefficiency of this H II region inferred from the total gas density is low, butnormal when inferred from the molecular gas density. These results suggest thepresence of a very small, locally dense region in the western tail of NGC 2782or of a low-metallicity and/or low-pressure star-forming region.

Tidal Tails of Minor Mergers: Star Formation Efficiency in the Western Tail of NGC 2782