Physical Properties of Dusty Starburst Cores in Massive Compact Galaxies with Extreme Outflows

Author(s): George, Erin | Advisor(s): Coil, Alison L | Abstract: Even though years have been spent studying how star formation is quenched in galaxies, we are still unsure of the physical mechanisms that drive the halt in forming stars. Quenching is presumed to be caused by feedback, which is the expulsion of gas and dust, from various sources inside the galaxy. Unfortunately, feedback is the crux of the current theory of galaxy evolution and how elliptical galaxies are formed. With this in mind, we have gathered a small selection of unusual late-stage merging galaxies at intermediate redshift. Not only are they very massive, but also compact, bright, blue, still forming stars, and have extremely fast outflows. Using data acquired from Keck/NIRSPEC, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and the Multiple Mirror Telescope, we examined forbidden emission lines of these extraordinary galaxies. We found strong indicators of broad line emission tracing the outflow, which is seen in both emission and absorption, indicating the outflows have multiple phases.