Project Title
Radio Continuum Spectra of Major Merger Candidate Galaxy Pairs
Faculty Mentor(s) Name(s)
Donovan Domingue
Abstract
The Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) and the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm Survey (FIRST) both used the NRAO Very Large Array near Socorro, New Mexico, to create catalogs of radio emitting galaxies across the sky. We analyze the detections and radio fluxes of binary interacting galaxies from the results of the VLASS and FIRST catalogs. The sample of interacting galaxies was chosen from a near-infrared selected set of gravitationally bound major merger candidates which include star forming members. These pairs have been the subject of studies with the Herschel Space Telescope and therefore have IR derived dust masses and star formation rates (SFRs) based on the assumptions that IR emission is created by thermal sources. Spectral indexes (1.3-4 GHz) revealing the slope of emission spanning the VLASS to FIRST frequency range are derived in this work for both the paired galaxies and a non-paired isolated control sample. We also examine any morphological type dependence of our results such as statistical differences among the pairs categorized as spiral-spiral pairs or spiral-elliptical pairs.
Radio Continuum Spectra of Major Merger Candidate Galaxy Pairs
The Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) and the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm Survey (FIRST) both used the NRAO Very Large Array near Socorro, New Mexico, to create catalogs of radio emitting galaxies across the sky. We analyze the detections and radio fluxes of binary interacting galaxies from the results of the VLASS and FIRST catalogs. The sample of interacting galaxies was chosen from a near-infrared selected set of gravitationally bound major merger candidates which include star forming members. These pairs have been the subject of studies with the Herschel Space Telescope and therefore have IR derived dust masses and star formation rates (SFRs) based on the assumptions that IR emission is created by thermal sources. Spectral indexes (1.3-4 GHz) revealing the slope of emission spanning the VLASS to FIRST frequency range are derived in this work for both the paired galaxies and a non-paired isolated control sample. We also examine any morphological type dependence of our results such as statistical differences among the pairs categorized as spiral-spiral pairs or spiral-elliptical pairs.