Journal article
Galaxy Zoo Green Peas: discovery of a class of compact extremely star-forming galaxies
Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, v 399(3), pp 1191-1205
Nov 2009
Abstract
We investigate a class of rapidly growing emission line galaxies, known as 'Green Peas', first noted by volunteers in the Galaxy Zoo project because of their peculiar bright green colour and small size, unresolved in Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging. Their appearance is due to very strong optical emission lines, namely [O iii] lambda 5007 A, with an unusually large equivalent width of up to similar to 1000 A. We discuss a well-defined sample of 251 colour-selected objects, most of which are strongly star forming, although there are some active galactic nuclei interlopers including eight newly discovered narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies. The star-forming Peas are low-mass galaxies (M similar to 108.5-1010 M(circle dot)) with high star formation rates (similar to 10 M(circle dot) yr-1), low metallicities (log[O/H] + 12 similar to 8.7) and low reddening [E(B - V) < 0.25] and they reside in low-density environments. They have some of the highest specific star formation rates (up to similar to 10-8 yr-1) seen in the local Universe, yielding doubling times for their stellar mass of hundreds of Myr. The few star-forming Peas with Hubble Space Telescope imaging appear to have several clumps of bright star-forming regions and low surface density features that may indicate recent or ongoing mergers. The Peas are similar in size, mass, luminosity and metallicity to luminous blue compact galaxies. They are also similar to high-redshift ultraviolet-luminous galaxies, e.g. Lyman-break galaxies and Ly alpha emitters, and therefore provide a local laboratory with which to study the extreme star formation processes that occur in high-redshift galaxies. Studying starbursting galaxies as a function of redshift is essential to understanding the build up of stellar mass in the Universe.
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Details
- Title
- Galaxy Zoo Green Peas: discovery of a class of compact extremely star-forming galaxies
- Creators
- Carolin Cardamone - Yale Univ, Dept Astron, New Haven, CT 06520 USAKevin Schawinski - Yale Univ, Dept Phys, Yale Ctr Astron & Astrophys, New Haven, CT 06520 USAMarc Sarzi - University of HertfordshireSteven P. Bamford - Univ Nottingham, Ctr Astron & Particle Theory, Nottingham NG7 2RD, EnglandNicola Bennert - University of California, Santa BarbaraC. M. Urry - Yale Univ, Dept Astron, Yale Ctr Astron & Astrophys, New Haven, CT 06520 USAChris Lintott - University of OxfordWilliam C. Keel - University of AlabamaJohn Parejko - Drexel UniversityRobert C. Nichol - University of PortsmouthDaniel Thomas - Univ Portsmouth, Inst Cosmol & Gravitat, Portsmouth PO1 2EG, Hants, EnglandDan Andreescu - LinkLab, Bronx, NY 10471 USAPhil Murray - Fingerprint Digital Media, Newtownards BT23 7GY, Down, North IrelandM. Jordan Raddick - Johns Hopkins Univ, Dept Phys & Astron, Baltimore, MD 21218 USAAnze Slosar - Univ Calif Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Berkeley Ctr Cosmol Phys, Berkeley, CA 94720 USAAlex Szalay - Johns Hopkins UniversityJan VandenBerg - Johns Hopkins University
- Publication Details
- Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, v 399(3), pp 1191-1205
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Number of pages
- 15
- Grant note
- Max Planck Society ST/G002630/1; ST/F002335/1; ST/F00298X/1; ST/F009186/1 / Science and Technology Facilities Council; UK Research & Innovation (UKRI); Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) National Science Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF) AST0407295 / NSF; National Science Foundation (NSF) National Aeronautics and Space Administration; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) STFC Science in Society Programme; UK Research & Innovation (UKRI); Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ST/G002630/1; ST/F00298X/1; ST/F002335/1; ST/F009186/1 / STFC; UK Research & Innovation (UKRI); Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Higher Education Funding Council for England; UK Research & Innovation (UKRI); Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Japanese Monbukagakusho; Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT) US Department of Energy; United States Department of Energy (DOE)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Physics
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000270902100009
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-70350075474
- Other Identifier
- 991021880398904721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Astronomy & Astrophysics