The LBT Panoramic View on the Recent Star-Formation Activity in IC2574

TL;DR

This study uses deep optical imaging from the Large Binocular Telescope to analyze the recent star-formation history of dwarf galaxy IC2574, revealing complex stellar populations and their relation to HI gas structures.

Contribution

It provides a detailed pixel-by-pixel analysis of stellar ages and masses, and investigates the connection between star formation and HI gas features, which was not previously well understood.

Findings

Older starburst ~100 Myr ago in the galaxy's center

Younger starburst within last 10 Myr at larger radii

No direct one-to-one link between HI holes and recent star formation

Abstract

We present deep imaging of the star-forming dwarf galaxy IC2574 in the M81 group taken with the Large Binocular Telescope in order to study in detail the recent star-formation history of this galaxy and to constrain the stellar feedback on its HI gas. We identify the star-forming areas in the galaxy by removing a smooth disk component from the optical images. We construct pixel-by-pixel maps of stellar age and stellar mass surface density in these regions by comparing their observed colors with simple stellar populations synthesized with STARBURST99. We find that an older burst occurred about 100 Myr ago within the inner 4 kpc and that a younger burst happened in the last 10 Myr mostly at galactocentric radii between 4 and 8 kpc. We analyze the stellar populations residing in the known HI holes of IC2574. Our results indicate that, even at the remarkable photometric depth of the LBT data, there is no clear one-to-one association between the observed HI holes and the most recent bursts of star formation in IC2574. The stellar populations formed during the younger burst are usually located at the periphery of the HI holes and are seen to be younger than the holes dynamical age. The kinetic energy of the holes expansion is found to be on average 10% of the total stellar energy released by the stellar winds and supernova explosions of the young stellar populations within the holes. With the help of control apertures distributed across the galaxy we estimate that the kinetic energy stored in the HI gas in the form of its local velocity dispersion is about 35% of the total stellar energy.