The energy source and dynamics of infrared luminous galaxy ESO 148-IG002

Sarah K. Leslie*, Jeffrey A. Rich, Lisa J. Kewley, Michael A. Dopita

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    13 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    ESO 148-IG002 represents a transformative stage of galaxy evolution, containing two galaxies at close separation which are currently coalescing into a single galaxy. We present integral field data of this galaxy from the ANUWide Field Spectrograph. We analyse our integral field data using optical line ratio maps and velocity maps. We apply active galactic nucleus (AGN), starburst and shock models to investigate the relative contribution from star formation, shock excitation and AGN activity to the optical emission in this key merger stage. We find that ESO 148-IG002 has a flat metallicity gradient, consistent with a recent gas inflow. We separate the line emission maps into a star-forming region with low velocity dispersion that spatially covers the whole system as well as a southern high velocity dispersion region with a coherent velocity pattern which could either be rotation or an AGN-driven outflow, showing little evidence for pure star formation. We show that the two overlapping galaxies can be separated using kinematic information, demonstrating the power of moderate spectral resolution integral field spectroscopy.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1842-1853
    Number of pages12
    JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
    Volume444
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 21 Oct 2014

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