Luminous Infrared Galaxies. III. Multiple Merger, Extended Massive Star Formation, Galactic Wind, and Nuclear Inflow in NGC 3256

We find in a detailed morphological study (at 15 pc resolution) that the extended massive star formation process, shows: (i) extended triple asymmetrical spiral arms structure (r = 5 kpc); and (ii) the spiral arms emanate from three different nuclei. The main optical nucleus shows a small spiral-disk (r = 500 pc) which is a continuation of the external one and reach the very nucleus. And this very nucleus shows blue elongate structure (63 pc x 30 pc), and luminous blue star cluster properties. We study the kinematics of this system and present a detailed Halpha velocity field for the central region (r = 5 kpc). In the main optical nucleus we found a clear "outflow component" associated to galactic-winds and a "inflow radial motion" (in the spiral-disk nuclear structure, r = 700 pc). In addition we detected the outflow component in the central and external regions (r < 5-6 kpc), with a very wide opening angle of 140. We found that the mean value of the inflow region (at PA = 80) is practically perpendicular to the axis of the bipolar outflow (at PA = 160). We analyze in detail the physical conditions in the giant H II regions located in the asymmetric spiral arms, the two main optical nuclei, and the outflow component. In the central region (r = 5-6 kpc) we detected that the nuclear starburst and the extended giant H II regions have very similar properties. We suggest that the interaction between dynamical effects, the galactic--wind (outflow), low-energy cosmic rays, and the molecular+ionized gas (probably in the inflow phase) could be the possible mechanism that generate the "similar extended properties in the massive star formation, at scale of 5-6 kpc!". We analyze for NGC3256 the possible evolution from luminous IR galaxy to QSOs.
86 pages, 36 figures