H i content of selected mid-infrared bright, starburst blue compact dwarf galaxies.

We report measurements of H  i content in 11 nearby, actively star-forming, blue compact dwarf galaxies (BCDs) from 21 cm observations with the Arecibo telescope. These BCDs, selected by their red (W2[4.6  |$\mu$| m]−W3[12  |$\mu$| m]>3.8 mag) and bright mid-infrared (MIR) emission (W4[22  |$\mu$| m]<7.6 mag), have high specific star formation rates (median sSFR ∼10−7.8 yr−1), similar to high redshift galaxies. H  i emission was detected in six sources. We analyse our new detections in the context of previous H  i observations of 218 dwarf irregulars (dIs) and BCDs in the literature. The M H  i – M * relation resulting from our observations confirms the dominating fraction of H  i gas among baryons in galaxies with lower stellar masses. This Arecibo BCD sample has significantly lower median H  i depletion time-scales (τ H i ∼ 0.3 Gyr) than other dIs/BCDs (∼ 6.3 Gyr) in the literature. The majority of the sources (10/11) in the Arecibo sample are very red in W1[3.4  |$\mu$| m]−W2[4.6  |$\mu$| m] colour (>0.8 mag) implying the presence of warm dust. We investigate the relation of τHI with stellar mass (M *) and sSFR. We find that τH  i is significantly anticorrelated with M * for higher sSFR (>10−8.5 yr−1) and with sSFR for higher stellar mass (⁠|$\gt 10^{7.5}\, {\rm M}_{\odot }$|⁠) dwarf galaxies. The high sSFR for the BCDs in the Arecibo observed sample is mainly due to their high atomic gas star formation efficiency (SFE) or low τH  i . The low τH  i or high SFE in these sources is possibly due to runaway star formation in compact and dense super star clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]