Galaxy interactions and mergers
I have worked on galaxy interactions for over a decade now,
probably attracted initially by the sheer strangeness of form that
many disturbed galaxies exhibit (see my
picture gallery
for some samples). This work has searched for links between external
perturbations and star formation or nuclear activity, and more
recently (especially in projects with Wentao Wu) started to assess
how important mergers are in the overall evolution of galaxies.
Some ongoing projects are:
A census of H II regions in interacting galaxies, to see how strongly
their sizes and distribution are affected by the global changes in
dynamics (with Lisa Frattare - hey, Lisa, just wanted you to know I still
remember this one!)
A search for luminous "young globular" clusters in earlier and
weaker galaxy interactions than hitherto reported (Kirk Borne is in on this
one)
Modelling the surface density of both individual galaxies and
galaxy pairs to constrain the history of galaxy mergers (this will
likely be Wentao Wu's dissertation work, as he has done all the
picky programming).
Back to Bill Keel's home page
keel@bildad.astr.ua.edu (Bill Keel)
Last updated: 27 June 1997