Gas content of infrared luminous markarian galaxies
Abstract
The atomic and molecular hydrogen gas properties of a complete sample of Markarian galaxies with flux density at 60 µm higher than 1.95 Jy are presented. We present the improved far-infrared luminosity function of Markarian galaxies; and its comparison with other samples. We find that 40% of the bright IRAS galaxies of far-infrared luminosity higher than 1010.5 L ⊙ are Markarian galaxies. There is an absence of correlation between HI content of Markarian galaxies and current star formation activity, implying that star formation in these systems has complex structure and it is not a simple function of the HI content. On the contrary, the H2 content of Markarian galaxies is well correlated with star formation activity. It is argued that tight correlation between HI and H2 contents is a consequence of transformation of atomic hydrogen into molecular.
- Publication:
-
Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- October 1995
- DOI:
- 10.1007/BF02044712
- Bibcode:
- 1995Ap.....38..356K