Oral Presentation

Elucidating the role of interactions in galaxy evolution

Author(s): A. Ranjan; Y. K., Sheen;

Presenter: Adarsh Ranjan (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute)

Galaxies in the universe primarily evolve by either interacting with other galaxies and acquiring stars directly or by accretion of gas that can further form stars. The chemical enrichment of a galaxy can be fuelled slowly by the accretion of relatively metal-poor gas from the intergalactic medium (or IGM) or metal-rich gas stripped from another galaxy. In both cases, cycles of follow-up star formation occurring in gas within galaxies (i.e., the interstellar medium, or ISM) further helps in the chemical enrichment of the galaxies. While the global cosmic star-formation history (CSFH) that takes an average statistical SFH of all galaxies at a particular epoch is quite well constrained, the individual scatters in SFH of galaxies at any epoch vary significantly. This variance is based on their morphology, active galactic nuclei (AGN) activity, gas content, and their respective environments. In my talk, I will discuss the role of interactions in galaxies in the local and distant universe observed using different VLT spectrographs.
I will also summarize how future surveys and multiwavelength observations can help better our understanding of the role of interactions in the star formation history of individual galaxies.