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Post‐starburst galaxies and the transformation of blue into red galaxies
Author(s) -
De Rijcke S.,
Buyle P.,
Pisano D.J.,
Freeman K.,
Dejonghe H.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
astronomische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-3994
pISSN - 0004-6337
DOI - 10.1002/asna.200911270
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , star formation , galaxy , luminous infrared galaxy , supernova , peculiar galaxy , spiral galaxy , radio galaxy , astronomy , elliptical galaxy , disc galaxy
We present deep single‐dish radio observations of a sample of nearby post‐starburst galaxies (0.05 < z < 0.1). About 50% of these post‐starburst galaxies are detected at 21 cm, with HI masses of ∼10 9 M ⊙ , up to ∼10 10 M ⊙ . These post‐starburst galaxies are as gas‐rich as spiral galaxies with comparable luminosities. There appears to exist no direct correlation between the amount of H I present in a post‐starburst galaxy and its star formation rate as traced by radio continuum emission. Moreover, the end of the starburst clearly does not necessarily require the complete exhaustion of the neutral gas reservoir. High‐resolution radio observations of one post‐starburst binary system suggest that most of the neutral gas resides outside the stellar bodies of the galaxies. Most likely, the gas was expelled by supernova and/or AGN feedback. This effectively stops star formation, even though copious amounts of diffuse neutral gas remain in the immediate vicinity. This remaining H I reservoir may eventually lead to further episodes of star formation. This may indicate that some post‐starbursts are observed in the inactive phase ofthe star formation duty cycle (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)