Abstract
The results of the FCRAO Extragalactic CO Survey are used to examine the trends regarding the molecular gas distribution, the star formation efficiency, and the global gas surface densities (HI and H2) in galaxies as a function of environment. Relative to a sample of isolated Sbc-Scd galaxies, the strongly interacting galaxies have more compact gas distributions, a higher mean value for the global star formation efficiency, and a larger fraction of gas in molecular form. Not only is the molecular gas redistributed during interactions, but evidence is presented for an enhanced conversion of atomic to molecular gas as well.
Among the merger remnants, the star formation efficiency is found to vary by almost two orders of magnitude. Part of this variation is shown to be a function of the merger age, in that the star formation efficiency increases with merger age. Additionally, a new result is presented showing that the strongly interacting galaxies exhibit a completely different trend in the star formation efficiency as a function of galaxy size, when compared with the isolated, paired, and cluster galaxies of similar dimensions.
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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Young, J.S. (1999). Molecular Gas and Star Formation in Interacting And Isolated Galaxies. In: Barnes, J.E., Sanders, D.B. (eds) Galaxy Interactions at Low and High Redshift. International Astronomical Union, vol 186. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4665-4_54
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4665-4_54
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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