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The ultra-luminous infrared galaxy Arp2 20 is a late-stage merger with several tidal structures in the outskirts and two very compact, dusty nuclei that show evidence for extreme star formation and host at least one AGN. New and archival high-resolution images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope provide a state-of-the-art view of the structures, dust, and stellar clusters in Arp 220. We find that ~90% of the Halpha emission arises from a shock-ionized bubble emanating from the AGN in the western nucleus, while the nuclear disks dominate the Pbeta emission. Four very young (~3-6 Myr) but lower mass (< 10^4 Msun) clusters are detected in Halpha within a few arcsec of the nuclei, but produce less than 1% of the line emission. We see little evidence for a population of massive clusters younger than 100Myr anywhere in Arp 220. From the masses and ages of the detected clusters, we find that star formation took place more-or-less continuously starting ~few Gyr ago with a rate between ~3-12 Msun/yr. Approximately 100Myr ago, star formation shut off suddenly everywhere, except in the nuclear disks. A very recent flicker of weak star formation produced the four young, low-mass clusters, while the rest of the galaxy appears to have remained in a post-starburst state. Cluster ages indicate that the tidal structures on the west side of the galaxy are older than those on the east side, but all appear to pre-date the shutoff of star formation. Arp 220 has many of the characteristics expected of a 'Shocked Post-Starburst Galaxy' or SPOG, since most of the system has been in a post-starburst state for the past ~100Myr and the detected Halpha emission arises from shocked rather than photo-ionized gas., Comment: accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

The relative average minimum projected separations of star clusters in the Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) and in tidal dwarfs around the interacting galaxy NGC 5291 are determined as a function of cluster mass to look for cluster-cluster mass segregation. Class 2 and 3 LEGUS clusters, which have a more irregular internal structure than the compact and symmetric class 1 clusters, are found to be mass segregated in low mass galaxies, which means that the more massive clusters are systematically bunched together compared to the lower mass clusters. This mass segregation is not present in high-mass galaxies nor for class 1 clusters. We consider possible causes for this segregation including differences in cluster formation and scattering in the shallow gravitational potentials of low mass galaxies., Comment: accepted for ApJ Letters, 10 pages, 4 figures

The morphology of HII regions around young star clusters provides insight into the timescales and physical processes that clear a cluster's natal gas. We study ~700 young clusters (<10Myr) in three nearby spiral galaxies (NGC 7793, NGC 4395, and NGC 1313) using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging from LEGUS (Legacy ExtraGalactic Ultraviolet Survey). Clusters are classified by their H$\alpha$ morphology (concentrated, partially exposed, no-emission) and whether they have neighboring clusters (which could affect the clearing timescales). Through visual inspection of the HST images, and analysis of ages, reddenings, and stellar masses from spectral energy distributions fitting, together with the (U-B), (V-I) colors, we find: 1) the median ages indicate a progression from concentrated (~3 Myr), to partially exposed (~4 Myr), to no H$\alpha$ emission (>5Myr), consistent with the expected temporal evolution of HII regions and previous results. However, 2) similarities in the age distributions for clusters with concentrated and partially exposed H$\alpha$ morphologies imply a short timescale for gas clearing (<1Myr). 3) our cluster sample's median mass is ~1000 M, and a significant fraction (~20%) contain one or more bright red sources (presumably supergiants), which can mimic reddening effects. Finally, 4) the median E(B-V) values for clusters with concentrated H$\alpha$ and those without H$\alpha$ emission appear to be more similar than expected (~0.18 vs. ~0.14, respectively), but when accounting for stochastic effects, clusters without H$\alpha$ emission are less reddened. To mitigate stochastic effects, we experiment with synthesizing more massive clusters by stacking fluxes of clusters within each H$\alpha$ morphological class. Composite isolated clusters also reveal a color and age progression for H$\alpha$ morphological classes, consistent with analysis of the individual clusters., Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, 7 tables; accepted for publication in MNRAS

We investigate how the properties of spiral arms relate to other fundamental galaxy properties. To this end, we use previously published measurements of those properties, and our own measurements of arm-interarm luminosity contrasts for a large sample of galaxies, using 3.6$\mu$m images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies. Flocculent galaxies are clearly distinguished from other spiral arm classes, especially by their lower stellar mass and surface density. Multi-armed and grand-design galaxies are similar in most of their fundamental parameters, excluding some bar properties and the bulge-to-total luminosity ratio. Based on these results, we discuss dense, classical bulges as a necessary condition for standing spiral wave modes in grand-design galaxies. We further find a strong correlation between bulge-to-total ratio and bar contrast, and a weaker correlation between arm and bar contrasts., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Galactic Dynamics in the Era of Large Surveys, M. Valluri & J. A. Sellwood (eds.)

The three-dimensional (3-D) shape of a galaxy inevitably is tied to how it has formed and evolved and to its dark matter halo. Local extremely metal-poor galaxies (XMPs; defined as having an average gas-phase metallicity < 0.1 solar) are important objects for understanding galaxy evolution largely because they appear to be caught in the act of accreting gas from the cosmic web, and their 3-D shape may reflect this. Here we report on the 3-D shape of XMPs as inferred from their observed projected minor-to-major axial ratios using a hierarchical Bayesian inference model, which determines the likely shape and orientation of each galaxy while simultaneously inferring the average shape and dispersion. We selected a sample of 149 XMPs and divided it into three sub-samples according to physical size and found that (1) the stellar component of XMPs of all sizes tends to be triaxial, with an intermediate axis approx 0.7 times the longest axis and that (2) smaller XMPs tend to be relatively thicker, with the shortest axis going from approx 0.15 times the longest axis for the large galaxies to approx 0.4 for the small galaxies. We provide the inferred 3-D shape and inclination of the individual XMPs in electronic format. We show that our results for the intermediate axis are not clouded by a selection effect against face-on XMPs. We discuss how an intermediate axis significantly smaller than the longest axis may be produced by several mechanisms, including lopsided gas accretion, non-axisymmetric star formation, or coupling with an elongated dark matter halo. Large relative thickness may reflect slow rotation, stellar feedback, or recent gas accretion., Comment: Accepted for publicaction in ApJ. 15 pages, 9 figures. Table with the shapes of the individual XMP galaxies available

We present the star cluster catalogs for 17 dwarf and irregular galaxies in the $HST$ Treasury Program "Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey" (LEGUS). Cluster identification and photometry in this subsample are similar to that of the entire LEGUS sample, but special methods were developed to provide robust catalogs with accurate fluxes due to low cluster statistics. The colors and ages are largely consistent for two widely used aperture corrections, but a significant fraction of the clusters are more compact than the average training cluster. However, the ensemble luminosity, mass, and age distributions are consistent suggesting that the systematics between the two methods are less than the random errors. When compared with the clusters from previous dwarf galaxy samples, we find that the LEGUS catalogs are more complete and provide more accurate total fluxes. Combining all clusters into a composite dwarf galaxy, we find that the luminosity and mass functions can be described by a power law with the canonical index of $-2$ independent of age and global SFR binning. The age distribution declines as a power law, with an index of $\approx-0.80\pm0.15$, independent of cluster mass and global SFR binning. This decline of clusters is dominated by cluster disruption since the combined star formation histories and integrated-light SFRs are both approximately constant over the last few hundred Myr. Finally, we find little evidence for an upper-mass cutoff ($<2\sigma$) in the composite cluster mass function, and can rule out a truncation mass below $\approx10^{4.5}$M$_{\odot}$ but cannot rule out the existence of a truncation at higher masses., Comment: 25 pages; 28 figures (Accepted to MNRAS)

The cosmological numerical simulations tell us that accretion of external metal-poor gas drives star-formation (SF) in galaxy disks. One the best pieces of observational evidence supporting this prediction is the existence of low metallicity star-forming regions in relatively high metallicity host galaxies. The SF is thought to be fed by metal-poor gas recently accreted. Since the gas accretion is stochastic, there should be galaxies with all the properties of a host but without the low metallicity starburst. These galaxies have not been identified yet. The exception may be UGC 2162, a nearby ultra-diffuse galaxy (UDG) which combines low surface brightness and relatively high metallicity. We confirm the high metallicity of UGC 2162 (12 + log(O/H) = 8.52+0.27-0.24 ) using spectra taken with the 10-m GTC telescope. GC2162 has the stellar mass, metallicity, and star-formation rate (SFR) surface density expected for a host galaxy in between outbursts. This fact suggests a physical connection between some UDGs and metal-poor galaxies, which may be the same type of object in a different phase of the SF cycle. UGC 2162 is a high-metallicity outlier of the mass-metallicity relation, a property shared by the few UDGs with known gas-phase metallicity., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 10 pages. 5 figures

One of the main theories for explaining the formation of spiral arms in galaxies is the stationary density wave theory. This theory predicts the existence of an age gradient across the arms. We use the stellar cluster catalogues of the galaxies NGC 1566, M51a, and NGC 628 from the Legacy Extragalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) program. In order to test for the possible existence of an age sequence across the spiral arms, we quantified the azimuthal offset between star clusters of different ages in our target galaxies. We found that NGC 1566, a grand-design spiral galaxy with bisymmetric arms and a strong bar, shows a significant age gradient across the spiral arms that appears to be consistent with the prediction of the stationary density wave theory. In contrast, M51a with its two well-defined spiral arms and a weaker bar does not show an age gradient across the arms. In addition, a comparison with non LEGUS star cluster catalogues for M51a yields similar results. We believe that the spiral structure of M51a is not the result of a stationary density wave with a fixed pattern speed. Instead, tidal interactions could be the dominant mechanism for the formation of spiral arms. We also found no offset in the azimuthal distribution of star clusters with different ages across the weak spiral arms of NGC 628.

We present a study of the dust-to-gas ratios in five nearby galaxies NGC 628 (M74), NGC 6503, NGC 7793, UGC 5139 (Holmberg I), and UGC 4305 (Holmberg II). Using Hubble Space Telescope broad band WFC3/UVIS UV and optical images from the Treasury program LEGUS (Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey) combined with archival HST/ACS data, we correct thousands of individual stars for extinction across these five galaxies using an isochrone-matching (reddening-free Q) method. We generate extinction maps for each galaxy from the individual stellar extinctions using both adaptive and fixed resolution techniques, and correlate these maps with neutral HI and CO gas maps from literature, including The HI Nearby Galaxy Survey (THINGS) and the HERA CO-Line Extragalactic Survey (HERACLES). We calculate dust-to-gas ratios and investigate variations in the dust-to-gas ratio with galaxy metallicity. We find a power law relationship between dust-to-gas ratio and metallicity, consistent with other studies of dust-to-gas ratio compared to metallicity. We find a change in the relation when H$_2$ is not included. This implies that underestimation of $N_{H_2}$ in low-metallicity dwarfs from a too-low CO-to-H$_2$ conversion factor $X_{CO}$ could have produced too low a slope in the derived relationship between dust-to-gas ratio and metallicity. We also compare our extinctions to those derived from fitting the spectral energy distribution (SED) using the Bayesian Extinction and Stellar Tool (BEAST) for NGC 7793 and find systematically lower extinctions from SED-fitting as compared to isochrone matching., Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures, accepted by ApJ

The Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) is a multiwavelength Cycle 21 Treasury program on the Hubble Space Telescope. It studied 50 nearby star-forming galaxies in five bands from the near UV to the I-band, combining new Wide Field Camera 3 observations with archival Advanced Camera for Surveys data. LEGUS was designed to investigate how star formation occurs and develops on both small and large scales, and how it relates to the galactic environments. In this paper we present the photometric catalogs for all the apparently single stars identified in the 50 LEGUS galaxies. Photometric catalogs and mosaicked images for all filters are available for download. We present optical and near UV color-magnitude diagrams for all the galaxies. For each galaxy we derived the distance from the tip of the red giant branch. We then used the NUV color-magnitude diagrams to identify stars more massive than 14 Mo, and compared their number with the number of massive stars expected from the GALEX FUV luminosity. Our analysis shows that the fraction of massive stars forming in star clusters and stellar associations is about constant with the star formation rate. This lack of a relation suggests that the time scale for evaporation of unbound structures is comparable or longer than 10 Myr. At low star formation rates this translates to an excess of mass in clustered environments as compared to model predictions of cluster evolution, suggesting that a significant fraction of stars form in unbound systems., Comment: 71 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables, Accpeted for publication on ApJS

We report the large effort which is producing comprehensive high-level young star cluster (YSC) catalogues for a significant fraction of galaxies observed with the Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) Hubble treasury program. We present the methodology developed to extract cluster positions, verify their genuine nature, produce multiband photometry (from NUV to NIR), and derive their physical properties via spectral energy distribution fitting analyses. We use the nearby spiral galaxy NGC628 as a test case for demonstrating the impact that LEGUS will have on our understanding of the formation and evolution of YSCs and compact stellar associations within their host galaxy. Our analysis of the cluster luminosity function from the UV to the NIR finds a steepening at the bright end and at all wavelengths suggesting a dearth of luminous clusters. The cluster mass function of NGC628 is consistent with a power-law distribution of slopes $\sim -2$ and a truncation of a few times $10^5$ M$_\odot$. After their formation YSCs and compact associations follow different evolutionary paths. YSCs survive for a longer timeframe, confirming their being potentially bound systems. Associations disappear on time scales comparable to hierarchically organized star-forming regions, suggesting that they are expanding systems. We find mass-independent cluster disruption in the inner region of NGC628, while in the outer part of the galaxy there is little or no disruption. We observe faster disruption rates for low mass ($\leq$ $10^4$ M$_\odot$) clusters suggesting that a mass-dependent component is necessary to fully describe the YSC disruption process in NGC628., Comment: accepted for publication in ApJ; 27 pages; complete stellar cluster catalogues will be released in June 2017 at https://legus.stsci.edu

The extremely metal-poor (XMP) galaxies analyzed in a previous paper have large star-forming regions with a metallicity lower than the rest of the galaxy. Such a chemical inhomogeneity reveals the external origin of the metal-poor gas fueling star formation, possibly indicating accretion from the cosmic web. This paper studies the kinematic properties of the ionized gas in these galaxies. Most XMPs have rotation velocity around a few tens of km/s. The star-forming regions appear to move coherently. The velocity is constant within each region, and the velocity dispersion sometimes increases within the star-forming clump towards the galaxy midpoint, suggesting inspiral motion toward the galaxy center. Other regions present a local maximum in velocity dispersion at their center, suggesting a moderate global expansion. The Halpha line wings show a number of faint emission features with amplitudes around a few percent of the main Halpha component, and wavelength shifts between 100 and 400 km/s. The components are often paired, so that red and blue emission features with similar amplitudes and shifts appear simultaneously. Assuming the faint emission to be produced by expanding shell-like structures, the inferred mass loading factor (mass loss rate divided by star formation rate) exceeds 10. Since the expansion velocity exceeds by far the rotational and turbulent velocities, the gas may eventually escape from the galaxy disk. The observed motions involve energies consistent with the kinetic energy released by individual core-collapse supernovae. Alternative explanations for the faint emission have been considered and discarded., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. Paper II of ApJL, 810, 15

The Kennicutt-Schmidt (KS) relation between the gas mass and star formation rate (SFR) describes the star formation regulation in disk galaxies. It is a function of gas metallicity, but the low metallicity regime of the KS diagram is poorly sampled. We have analyzed data for a representative set of extremely metal-poor galaxies (XMPs), as well as auxiliary data, and compared these to empirical and theoretical predictions. The majority of the XMPs possess high specific SFRs, similar to high redshift star-forming galaxies. On the KS plot, the XMP HI data occupy the same region as dwarfs, and extend the relation for low surface brightness galaxies. Considering the HI gas alone, a considerable fraction of the XMPs already fall off the KS law. Significant quantities of 'dark' H$_2$ mass (i.e., not traced by CO) would imply that XMPs possess low star formation efficiencies (SFE$_{\rm gas}$). Low SFE$_{\rm gas}$ in XMPs may be the result of the metal-poor nature of the HI gas. Alternatively, the HI reservoir may be largely inert, the star formation being dominated by cosmological accretion. Time lags between gas accretion and star formation may also reduce the apparent SFE$_{\rm gas}$, as may galaxy winds, which can expel most of the gas into the intergalactic medium. Hence, on global scales, XMPs could be HI-dominated, high specific SFR ($\gtrsim $ 10$^{-10}$ yr$^{-1}$), low SFE$_{\rm gas}$ ($\lesssim$ 10$^{-9}$ yr$^{-1}$) systems, in which the total HI mass is likely not a good predictor of the total H$_2$ mass nor of the SFR., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

We present a study of the spatial distribution of the stellar cluster populations in the star forming galaxy NGC 628. Using Hubble Space Telescope broad band WFC3/UVIS UV and optical images from the Treasury Program LEGUS (Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey), we have identified 1392 potential young (<100 Myr) stellar clusters within the galaxy, identified from a combination of visual inspection and automatic selection. We investigate the clustering of these young stellar clusters and quantify the strength and change of clustering strength with scale using the two-point correlation function. We also investigate how image boundary conditions and dust lanes affect the observed clustering. The distribution of the clusters is well fit by a broken power law with negative exponent $\alpha$. We recover a weighted mean index of $\alpha$ ~ -0.8 for all spatial scales below the break at 3".3 (158 pc at a distance of 9.9 Mpc) and an index of $\alpha$ ~ -0.18 above 158 pc for the accumulation of all cluster types. The strength of the clustering increases with decreasing age and clusters older than 40 Myr lose their clustered structure very rapidly and tend to be randomly distributed in this galaxy whereas the mass of the star cluster has little effect on the clustering strength. This is consistent with results from other studies that the morphological hierarchy in stellar clustering resembles the same hierarchy as the turbulent interstellar medium., Comment: 18 pages, 18 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. The HST images of Figure 1 are degraded in order to comply with the size requirement of arXiv

Models of galaxy formation predict that gas accretion from the cosmic web is a primary driver of star formation over cosmic history. Except in very dense environments where galaxy mergers are also important, model galaxies feed from cold streams of gas from the web that penetrate their dark matter haloes. Although these predictions are unambiguous, the observational support has been indirect so far. Here we report spectroscopic evidence for this process in extremely metal-poor galaxies (XMPs) of the local Universe, taking the form of localized starbursts associated with gas having low metallicity. Detailed abundance analyses based on Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) optical spectra of ten XMPs show that the galaxy hosts have metallicities around 60 % solar on average, while the large star-forming regions that dominate their integrated light have low metallicities of some 6 % solar. Because gas mixes azimuthally in a rotation timescale (a few hundred Myr), the observed metallicity inhomogeneities are only possible if the metal-poor gas fell onto the disk recently. We analyze several possibilities for the origin of the metal-poor gas, favoring the metal-poor gas infall predicted by numerical models. If this interpretation is correct, XMPs trace the cosmic web gas in their surroundings, making them probes to examine its properties., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL

The nearby dwarf starburst galaxy NGC5253 hosts a number of young, massive star clusters, the two youngest of which are centrally concentrated and surrounded by thermal radio emission (the `radio nebula'). To investigate the role of these clusters in the starburst energetics, we combine new and archival Hubble Space Telescope images of NGC5253 with wavelength coverage from 1500 Ang to 1.9 micron in 13 filters. These include H-alpha, P-beta, and P-alpha, and the imaging from the Hubble Treasury Program LEGUS (Legacy Extragalactic UV Survey). The extraordinarily well-sampled spectral energy distributions enable modeling with unprecedented accuracy the ages, masses, and extinctions of the 9 optically brightest clusters (M_V < -8.8) and the two young radio nebula clusters. The clusters have ages ~1-15 Myr and masses ~1x10^4 - 2.5x10^5 M_sun. The clusters' spatial location and ages indicate that star formation has become more concentrated towards the radio nebula over the last ~15 Myr. The most massive cluster is in the radio nebula; with a mass 2.5x10^5 M_sun and an age ~1 Myr, it is 2-4 times less massive and younger than previously estimated. It is within a dust cloud with A_V~50 mag, and shows a clear nearIR excess, likely from hot dust. The second radio nebula cluster is also ~1 Myr old, confirming the extreme youth of the starburst region. These two clusters account for about half of the ionizing photon rate in the radio nebula, and will eventually supply about 2/3 of the mechanical energy in present-day shocks. Additional sources are required to supply the remaining ionizing radiation, and may include very massive stars., Comment: 67 pages; 11 figures; 7 tables. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

The Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) is a Cycle 21 Treasury program on the Hubble Space Telescope, aimed at the investigation of star formation and its relation with galactic environment in nearby galaxies, from the scales of individual stars to those of ~kpc-size clustered structures. Five-band imaging, from the near-ultraviolet to the I-band, with the Wide Field Camera 3, plus parallel optical imaging with the Advanced Camera for Surveys, is being collected for selected pointings of 50 galaxies within the local 12 Mpc. The filters used for the observations with the Wide Field Camera 3 are: F275W(2,704 A), F336W(3,355 A), F438W(4,325 A), F555W(5,308 A), and F814W(8,024 A); the parallel observations with the Advanced Camera for Surveys use the filters: F435W(4,328 A), F606W(5,921 A), and F814W(8,057 A). The multi-band images are yielding accurate recent (<~50 Myr) star formation histories from resolved massive stars and the extinction-corrected ages and masses of star clusters and associations. The extensive inventories of massive stars and clustered systems will be used to investigate the spatial and temporal evolution of star formation within galaxies. This will, in turn, inform theories of galaxy evolution and improve the understanding of the physical underpinning of the gas-star formation relation and the nature of star formation at high redshift. This paper describes the survey, its goals and observational strategy, and the initial science results. Because LEGUS will provide a reference survey and a foundation for future observations with JWST and with ALMA, a large number of data products are planned for delivery to the community., Comment: 67 pages, 9 figures; accepted for publication on the Astronomical Journal

This paper discusses how cosmic gas accretion controls star formation, and summarizes the physical properties expected for the cosmic gas accreted by galaxies. The paper also collects observational evidence for gas accretion sustaining star formation. It reviews evidence inferred from neutral and ionized hydrogen, as well as from stars. A number of properties characterizing large samples of star-forming galaxies can be explained by metal-poor gas accretion, in particular, the relationship between stellar mass, metallicity, and star formation rate (the so-called fundamental metallicity relationship). They are put forward and analyzed. Theory predicts gas accretion to be particularly important at high redshift, so indications based on distant objects are reviewed, including the global star formation history of the universe, and the gas around galaxies as inferred from absorption features in the spectra of background sources., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&ARev. 52 pages. 14 Figures

We measure the oxygen metallicity of the ionized gas along the major axis of seven dwarf star-forming galaxies. Two of them, SDSSJ1647+21 and SDSSJ2238+14, show 0.5 dex metallicity decrements in inner regions with enhanced star-formation activity. This behavior is similar to the metallicity drop observed in a number of local tadpole galaxies by Sanchez Almeida et al. (2013) and interpreted as showing early stages of assembling in disk galaxies, with the star formation sustained by external metal-poor gas accretion. The agreement with tadpoles has several implications: (1) it proves that galaxies other than the local tadpoles present the same unusual metallicity pattern. (2) Our metallicity inhomogeneities were inferred using the direct method, thus discarding systematic errors usually attributed to other methods. (3) Taken together with the tadpole data, our findings suggest a threshold around one tenth the solar value for the metallicity drops to show up. Although galaxies with clear metallicity drops are rare, the physical mechanism responsible for them may sustain a significant part of the star-formation activity in the local Universe. We argue that the star-formation dependence of the mass-metallicity relationship, as well as other general properties followed by most local disk galaxies, are naturally interpreted as side effects of pristine gas infall. Alternatives to the metal poor gas accretion are examined too., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 10 pages. 5 Figs

Extremely metal-poor (XMP) galaxies are chemically, and possibly dynamically, primordial objects in the local Universe. Our objective is to characterize the HI content of the XMP galaxies as a class, using as a reference the list of 140 known local XMPs compiled by Morales-Luis et al. (2011). We have observed 29 XMPs, which had not been observed before at 21 cm, using the Effelsberg radio telescope. This information was complemented with HI data published in literature for a further 53 XMPs. In addition, optical data from the literature provided morphologies, stellar masses, star-formation rates and metallicities. Effelsberg HI integrated flux densities are between 1 and 15 Jy km/s, while line widths are between 20 and 120 km/s. HI integrated flux densities and line widths from literature are in the range 0.1 - 200 Jy km/s and 15 - 150 km/s, respectively. Of the 10 new Effelsberg detections, two sources show an asymmetric double-horn profile, while the remaining sources show either asymmetric (7 sources) or symmetric (1 source) single-peak 21 cm line profiles. An asymmetry in the HI line profile is systematically accompanied by an asymmetry in the optical morphology. Typically, the g-band stellar mass-to-light ratios are ~0.1, whereas the HI gas mass-to-light ratios may be up to 2 orders of magnitude larger. Moreover, HI gas-to-stellar mass ratios fall typically between 10 and 20, denoting that XMPs are extremely gas-rich. We find an anti-correlation between the HI gas mass-to-light ratio and the luminosity, whereby fainter XMPs are more gas-rich than brighter XMPs, suggesting that brighter sources have converted a larger fraction of their HI gas into stars. The dynamical masses inferred from the HI line widths imply that the stellar mass does not exceed 5% of the dynamical mass, while the \ion{H}{i} mass constitutes between 20 and 60% of the dynamical mass. (abridged), Comment: 30 pages, accepted for A&A

We have analyzed the radial distribution of old stars in a sample of 218 nearby face-on disks, using deep 3.6um images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G). In particular, we have studied the structural properties of those disks with a broken or down-bending profile. We find that, on average, disks with a genuine single exponential profile have a scale-length and a central surface brightness which are intermediate to those of the inner and outer components of a down-bending disk with the same total stellar mass. In the case of barred galaxies, the ratio between the break and the bar radii (Rbr/Rbar) depends strongly on the total stellar mass of the galaxy. For galaxies more massive than 10^10 Msun, the distribution is bimodal, peaking at Rbr/Rbar~2 and ~3.5. The first peak, which is the most populated one, is linked to the Outer Lindblad Resonance of the bar, whereas the second one is consistent with a dynamical coupling between the bar and the spiral pattern. For galaxies below 10^10 Msun, breaks are found up to ~10 Rbar, but we show that they could still be caused by resonances given the rising nature of rotation curves in these low-mass disks. While not ruling out star formation thresholds, our results imply that radial stellar migration induced by non-axysymmetric features can be responsible not only for those breaks at 2 Rbar, but also for many of those found at larger radii., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 32 pages, 14 figures. The whole figureset of Fig. 14 can be downloaded from http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~jmunoz/f14_large.pdf

Tadpole galaxies, with a bright peripheral clump on a faint tail, are morphological types unusual in the nearby universe but very common early on. Low mass local tadpoles were identified and studied photometrically in a previous work, which we complete here analyzing their chemical and dynamical properties. We measure Halpha velocity curves of seven local tadpoles, representing 50% of the initial sample. Five of them show evidence for rotation (sim 70%), and a sixth target hints at it. Often the center of rotation is spatially offset with respect to the tadpole head (3 out of 5 cases). The size and velocity dispersion of the heads are typical of giant HII regions, and three of them yield dynamical masses in fair agreement with their stellar masses as inferred from photometry. In four cases the velocity dispersion at the head is reduced with respect to its immediate surroundings. The oxygen metallicity estimated from [NII]6583/Halpha often shows significant spatial variations across the galaxies (sim 0.5 dex), being smallest at the head and larger elsewhere. The resulting chemical abundance gradients are opposite to the ones observed in local spirals, but agrees with disk galaxies at high redshift. We interpret the metallicity variation as a sign of external gas accretion (cold-flows) onto the head of the tadpole. The galaxies are low metallicity outliers of the mass-metallicity relationship. In particular, two of the tadpole heads are extremely metal poor, with a metallicity smaller than a tenth of the solar value. These two targets are also very young (ages smaller than 5 Myr). All these results combined are consistent with the local tadpole galaxies being disks in early stages of assembling, with their star formation sustained by accretion of external metal poor gas., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 17 pages, 13 Figs

Compact group galaxies often appear unaffected by their unusually dense environment. Closer examination can, however, reveal the subtle, cumulative effects of multiple galaxy interactions. Hickson Compact Group (HCG) 59 is an excellent example of this situation. We present a photometric study of this group in the optical (HST), infrared (Spitzer) and X-ray (Chandra) regimes aimed at characterizing the star formation and nuclear activity in its constituent galaxies and intra-group medium. We associate five dwarf galaxies with the group and update the velocity dispersion, leading to an increase in the dynamical mass of the group of up to a factor of 10 (to 2.8e13 Msun), and a subsequent revision of its evolutionary stage. Star formation is proceeding at a level consistent with the morphological types of the four main galaxies, of which two are star-forming and the other two quiescent. Unlike in some other compact groups, star-forming complexes across HCG 59 closely follow mass-radius scaling relations typical of nearby galaxies. In contrast, the ancient globular cluster populations in galaxies HCG 59A and B show intriguing irregularities, and two extragalactic HII regions are found just west of B. We age-date a faint stellar stream in the intra-group medium at ~1 Gyr to examine recent interactions. We detect a likely low-luminosity AGN in HCG 59A by its ~10e40 erg/s X-ray emission; the active nucleus rather than star formation can account for the UV+IR SED. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context of galaxy evolution in dense environments., Comment: 38 pages, 17 figures. Please visit "http://tinyurl.com/isk-hcg59" for a full-resolution PDF. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

[Abridged] The environment where galaxies are found heavily influences their evolution. Close groupings, like the cores of galaxy clusters or compact groups, evolve in ways far more dramatic than their isolated counterparts. We have conducted a multiwavelength study of HCG7, consisting of four giant galaxies: 3 spirals and 1 lenticular. We use Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging to identify and characterize the young and old star cluster populations. We find young massive clusters (YMC) mostly in the three spirals, while the lenticular features a large, unimodal population of globular clusters (GC) but no detectable clusters with ages less than ~Gyr. The spatial and approximate age distributions of the ~300 YMCs and ~150 GCs thus hint at a regular star formation history in the group over a Hubble time. While at first glance the HST data show the galaxies as undisturbed, our deep ground-based, wide-field imaging that extends the HST coverage reveals faint signatures of stellar material in the intra-group medium. We do not detect the intra-group medium in HI or Chandra X-ray observations, signatures that would be expected to arise from major mergers. We find that the HI gas content of the individual galaxies and the group as a whole are a third of the expected abundance. The appearance of quiescence is challenged by spectroscopy that reveals an intense ionization continuum in one galaxy nucleus, and post-burst characteristics in another. Our spectroscopic survey of dwarf galaxy members yields one dwarf elliptical in an apparent tidal feature. We therefore suggest an evolutionary scenario for HCG7, whereby the galaxies convert most of their available gas into stars without major mergers and result in a dry merger. As the conditions governing compact groups are reminiscent of galaxies at intermediate redshift, we propose that HCGs are appropriate for studying galaxy evolution at z~1-2., Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures; accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal; full-resolution copy available at http://files.me.com/iraklisk/gbjq7c

The handful of low-mass, late-type galaxies that comprise Hickson Compact Group 31 is in the midst of complex, ongoing gravitational interactions, evocative of the process of hierarchical structure formation at higher redshifts. With sensitive, multicolor Hubble Space Telescope imaging, we characterize the large population of <10 Myr old star clusters that suffuse the system. From the colors and luminosities of the young star clusters, we find that the galaxies in HCG 31 follow the same universal scaling relations as actively star-forming galaxies in the local Universe despite the unusual compact group environment. Furthermore, the specific frequency of the globular cluster system is consistent with the low end of galaxies of comparable masses locally. This, combined with the large mass of neutral hydrogen and tight constraints on the amount of intragroup light, indicate that the group is undergoing its first epoch of interaction-induced star formation. In both the main galaxies and the tidal-dwarf candidate, F, stellar complexes, which are sensitive to the magnitude of disk turbulence, have both sizes and masses more characteristic of z=1-2 galaxies. After subtracting the light from compact sources, we find no evidence for an underlying old stellar population in F -- it appears to be a truly new structure. The low velocity dispersion of the system components, available reservoir of HI, and current star formation rate of ~10 solar masses per year, indicate that HCG31 is likely to both exhaust its cold gas supply and merge within ~1 Gyr. We conclude that the end product will be an isolated, X-ray-faint, low-mass elliptical., Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures (including low resolution versions of color images), latex file prepared with emulateapj. Accepted for publication by the Astronomical Journal

We present deep near-infrared K_s-band AAT IRIS2 observations of a selected sample of nearby barred spiral galaxies, including some with the strongest known bars. The sample covers a range of Hubble types from SB0- to SBc. The goal is to determine if the torque strengths of the spirals correlate with those of the bars, which might be expected if the bars actually drive the spirals as has been predicted by theoretical studies. This issue has implications for interpreting bar and spiral fractions at high redshift. Analysis of previous samples suggested that such a correlation exists in the near-infrared, where effects of extinction and star formation are less important. However, the earlier samples had only a few excessively strong bars. Our new sample largely confirms our previous studies, but still any correlation is relatively weak. We find two galaxies, NGC 7513 and UGC 10862, where there is a only a weak spiral in the presence of a very strong bar. We suggest that some spirals probably are driven by their bars at the same pattern speed, but that this may be only when the bar is growing or if there is abundant gas and dissipation., Comment: 84 pages, 29 figures, accepted by Astronomical Journal

We investigate the properties of a clump-cluster galaxy at redshift 1.57. The morphology of this galaxy is dominated by eight star-forming clumps in optical observations, and has photometric properties typical of most clump-cluster and chain galaxies. Its complex asymmetrical morphology has led to the suggestion that this system is a group merger of several initially separate proto-galaxies. We performed H_alpha integral field spectroscopy of this system using SINFONI on VLT UT4. These observations reveal a large-scale velocity gradient throughout the system, but with large local kinematic disturbances. Using a numerical model of gas-rich disk fragmentation, we find that clump interactions and migration can account for the observed disturbed rotation. On the other hand, the global rotation would not be expected for a multiply merging system. We further find that this system follows the stellar mass vs. metallicity, star formation rate and size relations expected for a disk at this redshift, and exhibits a disk-like radial metallicity gradient, so that the scenario of internal disk fragmentation is the most likely one. A red and metallic central concentration appears to be a bulge in this proto-spiral clumpy galaxy. A chain galaxy at redshift 2.07 in the same field also shows disk-like rotation. Such systems are likely progenitors of the present-day bright spiral galaxies, forming their exponential disks through clump migration and disruption and fueling their bulges. Our present results show that disturbed morphologies and kinematics are not necessarily signs of galaxy mergers and interactions, and can instead result from the internal evolution of primordial disks., Comment: A&A, accepted. Version with full resolution figures available at http://aramis.obspm.fr/~bournaud/udfr2.pdf -- Animation of clumpy galaxy models available at http://aramis.obspm.fr/~bournaud/cc/cc.html

Many galaxies at high redshift have peculiar morphologies dominated by 10^8-10^9 Mo kpc-sized clumps. Using numerical simulations, we show that these "clump clusters" can result from fragmentation in gravitationally unstable primordial disks. They appear as "chain galaxies" when observed edge-on. In less than 1 Gyr, clump formation, migration, disruption, and interaction with the disk cause these systems to evolve from initially uniform disks into regular spiral galaxies with an exponential or double-exponential disk profile and a central bulge. The inner exponential is the initial disk size and the outer exponential is from material flung out by spiral arms and clump torques. A nuclear black hole may form at the same time as the bulge from smaller black holes that grow inside the dense cores of each clump. The properties and lifetimes of the clumps in our models are consistent with observations of the clumps in high redshift galaxies, and the stellar motions in our models are consistent with the observed velocity dispersions and lack of organized rotation in chain galaxies. We suggest that violently unstable disks are the first step in spiral galaxy formation. The associated starburst activity gives a short timescale for the initial stellar disk to form., Comment: ApJ Accepted, 13 pages, 9 figures

We have obtained deep near-infrared K_s-band William Herschel Telescope observations of a sample of 15 nearby spiral galaxies having a range of Hubble types and apparent bar strengths. The near-infrared light distributions are converted into gravitational potentials, and the maximum relative gravitational torques due to the bars and the spirals are estimated. We find that spiral strength, Q_s, and bar strength, Q_b, correlate well with other measures of spiral arm and bar amplitudes, and that spiral and bar strengths also correlate well with each other. We also find a correlation between the position angle of the end of the bar and the position angle of the inner spiral. These correlations suggest that the bars and spirals grow together with the same rates and pattern speeds. We also show that the strongest bars tend to have the most open spiral patterns. Because open spirals imply high disk-to-halo mass ratios, bars and spirals most likely grow together as a combined disk instability. They stop growing for different reasons, however, giving the observed variation in bar-spiral morphologies. Bar growth stops because of saturation when most of the inner disk is in the bar, and spiral growth stops because of increased stability as the gas leaves and the outer disk heats up., Comment: AJ in press, 18 pages, 10 figures. Seven figure pages included as jpeg files, other figures included as encapsulated postscript. Complete high-resolution version of the paper in postscript or pdf format can be found at ftp://star.herts.ac.uk/pub/Knapen/BlockAJpaper

The Hubble classification scheme of galaxies is based on blue-light appearance. Atlases reveal the rich variety of responses of the Population I component (`the mask') of gas and dust to the underlying, older, stellar population. However, the Population I component may only constitute 5 percent of the dynamical mass of the galaxy; furthermore, dusty masks are highly effective in hiding bars. We firstly discuss the rich duality in spiral structure, and highlight a near-infrared classification scheme for spiral galaxies. We next show that images secured with SALTICAM will be ideally suited to probe key questions such as whether the optical light in the gaseous Population I component is the result of Kolmogorov turbulence, cascasding from the largest of scales down to the Nyquist limit. If so, the optical emission in galaxies will be organized in a global fractal pattern with an intrinsic 1D power spectrum having a slope of -5/3, or -8/3 in 2D., Comment: 7 pages, 3 Figures. Invited talk, to appear in "The First Robert Stobie Memorial SALT Workshop" (29-31 Oct, 2003), to be published in 2004 by the South African Astronomical Observatory & edited by David Buckley

The structure of dust spirals in the nuclei of the SAab-type Liner galaxies NGC 4450 and NGC 4736 is studied using archival HST PC images. The spirals are typically only several hundredths of a magnitude fainter than the neighboring disks, so unsharp mask techniques are used to highlight them. The ambient extinction is estimated to be less than 0.1 mag from the intensity decrements of the dust features and from the spiral surface filling factor, which is about constant for all radii and sizes. The nuclear dust spirals differ from main-disk spirals in several respects: the nuclear spirals have no associated star formation, they are very irregular with both trailing and leading components that often cross, they become darker as they approach the center, they completely fill the inner disks with a constant areal density, making the number of distinct spirals (the azimuthal wavenumber m) increase linearly with radius, and their number decreases with increasing arm width as a power law. Fourier transform power spectra of the spirals, taken in the azimuthal direction, show a power law behavior with a slope of -5/3 over the range of frequencies where the power stands above the pixel noise. This is the same slope as that found for the one-dimensional power spectra of HI emission in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and also the slope expected for a thin turbulent disk. All of these properties suggest that the dust spirals are a manifestation of acoustic turbulence in the inner gas disks of these galaxies. Such turbulence should dissipate orbital energy and transfer angular momentum outward, leading to a steady accretion of gas toward the nucleus., Comment: accepted for ApJ 564, January 1 2001, 11 figures

The Hubble classification scheme of galaxies is based on blue-light appearance. Atlases reveal the rich variety of responses of the Population I component (the "mask") of gas and dust to the underlying, older, stellar population. However, the Population I component may only constitute 5 percent of the dynamical mass of the galaxy; furthermore, dusty masks are highly effective in hiding bars. In the 1960s, Ken Freeman presented a meticulous study of the dynamics of bars at a time when nonbarred galaxies were called "normal" spirals and barred galaxies were regarded as curiosities. Now we know that it is more "normal" for a galaxy to be barred than to be nonbarred. What is the range for gravitational torques of bars? We describe here a recently developed method for deriving relative bar torques by using gravitational potentials inferred from near-infrared light distributions. We incorporate a bar torque class into the Block/Puerari dust-penetrated galaxy classification system. We find a huge overlap in relative bar torque between Hubble (Sa, Sb, ...) and (SBa, SBb, ...) classifications. Application of the method to the high redshift universe is briefly discussed., Comment: to be published in The Dynamics, Structure, and History of Galaxies, G. S. Da Costa & E. M. Sadler, eds., ASP Conf. Ser. (Latex, 13 pages + 6 figures; Figs. 3 and 6 are in color and are also available at http://bama.ua.edu/~rbuta/bars/ken/

The relative bar torques for 45 galaxies observed at $K$- band with the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope are determined by transforming the light distributions into potentials and deriving the maximum ratios of the tangential forces relative to the radial forces. The results are combined with the bar torques for 30 other galaxies determined from our previous $K$-band survey (Buta & Block 2001). Relative bar torques determine the degree of spiral arm forcing, gas accretion, and bar evolution. They differ from other measures of bar strength, such as the relative amplitude of the bar determined photometrically, because they include the bulge and other disk light that contributes to the radial component of the total force. If the bulge is strong and the radial forcing large, then even a prominent bar can have a relatively weak influence on the azimuthal motions in the disk. Here we find that the relative bar torque correlates only weakly with the optical bar type listed in the Revised Shapley-Ames and de Vaucouleurs systems. In fact, some classically barred galaxies have weaker relative bar torques than classically unbarred galaxies. The optical class is a poor measure of azimuthal disk forcing for two reasons: some infrared bars are not seen optically, and some bars with strong bulges have their azimuthal forces so strongly diluted by the average radial force that they exert only small torques on their disks. The Hubble classification scheme poorly recognizes the gravitational influence of bars. Applications of our bar torque method to the high-redshift universe are briefly discussed., Comment: 9 pages, 9 embedded postscript figures. Accepted for publication in A&A, May 30, 2001. Original high-quality figures can be obtained from ftp://ftp.ing.iac.es/pub/outgoing/knapen/Block/

Hubble Space Telescope images of the galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163 show star formation and dust structures in a system that has experienced a recent grazing encounter. Tidal forces from NGC 2207 compressed and elongated the disk of IC 2163, forming an oval ridge of star formation. Gas flowing away from this ridge has thin parallel dust filaments transverse to the direction of motion. Numerical models suggest that the filaments come from flocculent spiral arms that were present before the interaction. A dust lane at the outer edge of the tidal tail is a shock front where the flow abruptly changes direction. A spiral arm of NGC 2207 that is backlit by IC 2163 is seen to contain several parallel, knotty filaments that are probably shock fronts in a density wave. Blue clusters of star formation inside these dust lanes show density wave triggering by local gravitational collapse. Spiral arms inside the oval of IC 2163 could be the result of ILR-related orbits in the tidal potential that formed the oval. Their presence suggests that tidal forces alone may initiate a temporary nuclear gas flow and eventual starburst without first forming a stellar bar. Several emission structures resembling jets 100-1000 pc long appear. There is a dense dark cloud with a conical shape 400 pc long and a bright compact cluster at the tip, and with a conical emission nebula of the same length that points away from the cluster in the other direction. This region coincides with a non-thermal radio continuum source that is 1000 times the luminosity of Cas A at 20 cm., Comment: 20 pgs, 8 figs as jpeg (3 color), to appear in Astronomical Journal, August 2000

The giant elliptical galaxy M86 in Virgo has a ~28 kpc long dust trail inside its optical halo that points toward the nucleated dwarf elliptical galaxy, VCC 882. The trail seems to be stripped material from the dwarf. Extinction measurements suggest that the ratio of the total gas mass in the trail to the blue luminosity of the dwarf is about unity, which is comparable to such ratios in dwarf irregular galaxies. The ram pressure experienced by the dwarf galaxy in the hot gaseous halo of M86 was comparable to the internal gravitational binding energy density of the presumed former gas disk in VCC 882. Published numerical models of this case are consistent with the overall trail-like morphology observed here. Three concentrations in the trail may be evidence for the predicted periodicity of the mass loss. The evaporation time of the trail is comparable to the trail age obtained from the relative speed of the galaxies and the trail length. Thus the trail could be continuously formed from stripped replenished gas if the VCC 882 orbit is bound. However, the high gas mass and the low expected replenishment rate suggest that this is only the first stripping event. Implications for the origin of nucleated dwarf ellipticals are briefly discussed., Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, Astronomical Journal, August 2000, in press

Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope reveal an irregular network of dust spiral arms in the nuclear region of the interacting disk galaxy NGC 2207. The spirals extend from ~50 pc to ~300 pc in galactocentric radius, with a projected width of ~20 pc. Radiative transfer calculations determine the gas properties of the spirals and the inner disk, and imply a factor of ~4 local gas compression in the spirals. The gas is not strongly self-gravitating, nor is there a nuclear bar, so the spirals could not have formed by the usual mechanisms applied to main galaxy disks. Instead, they may result from acoustic instabilities that amplify at small galactic radii. Such instabilities may promote gas accretion into the nucleus., Comment: 4 pages, two figures, accepted by Astrophysical J. Letters, Vol 503, August 20, 1998

Compact group galaxies often appear unaffected by their unusually dense environment. Closer examination can, however, reveal the subtle, cumulative effects of multiple galaxy interactions. Hickson Compact Group (HCG) 59 is an excellent example of this situation. We present a photometric study of this group in the optical (HST), infrared (Spitzer) and X-ray (Chandra) regimes aimed at characterizing the star formation and nuclear activity in its constituent galaxies and intra-group medium. We associate five dwarf galaxies with the group and update the velocity dispersion, leading to an increase in the dynamical mass of the group of up to a factor of 10 (to 2.8 x 10(exp 13) Stellar Mass), and a subsequent revision of its evolutionary stage. Star formation is proceeding at a level consistent with the morphological types of the four main galaxies, of which two are star-forming and the other two quiescent. Unlike in some other compact groups, star-forming complexes across HCG 59 closely follow mass-radius scaling relations typical of nearby galaxies. In contrast, the ancient globular cluster populations in galaxies HCG 59A and B show intriguing irregularities, and two extragalactic HII regions are found just west of B. We age-date a faint stellar stream in the intra-group medium at approx. 1 Gyr to examine recent interactions. We detect a likely low-luminosity AGN in HCG 59A by its approx. 10(exp 40) erg/s X-ray emission; the active nucleus rather than star formation can account for the UV+IR SED. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context of galaxy evolution in dense environments.