Starburst in the interacting HII galaxy II Zw 40 and in non-interacting HII galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses integral field spectroscopy to analyze the kinematics and interstellar medium of the HII galaxy II Zw 40, exploring starburst triggers in interacting and non-interacting galaxies.

Contribution

It provides detailed kinematic and IR views of II Zw 40, suggesting some starbursts may occur spontaneously without external triggers.

Findings

Detailed kinematic map of the starburst region.

Near-IR view of ISM phases interaction.

Some low-luminosity HII galaxies may form stars spontaneously.

Abstract

I summarize the results of our integral field spectroscopic observations of the nearby prototype of HII galaxies, II Zw 40. Observations with GMOS-IFU on GEMINI-North in the optical allowed us to make a detailed kinematic picture of the central starburst, while SINFONI with adaptive optics on the ESO-VLT gave us a near-IR view of the interplay between the ISM phases. Here, I also address the question that not all starbursts require an external trigger such as a galaxy-galaxy encounter, as it seems to be the case for a fraction of low luminosity HII galaxies. We speculate that these may form stars spontaneously like "pop-corn in a pan".