Digging deep into the ULIRG phenomenon: When radio beats dust

TL;DR

This paper highlights the importance of high-resolution radio observations in studying U/LIRGs, revealing details about star formation, supernova activity, and AGN presence that are obscured in other wavelengths.

Contribution

The paper presents new high-angular resolution radio studies of U/LIRGs, including the discovery of a prolific supernova factory and precise localization of an AGN in Arp 299-A.

Findings

Discovery of an extremely prolific supernova factory in Arp 299-A

Detection and localization of the AGN in Arp 299-A

Demonstration of the importance of radio studies for understanding starburst galaxies

Abstract

Luminous and Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxies (U/LIRGs) do also radiate copious amounts of radio emission, both thermal (free-free) and non-thermal (mainly synchrotron). This is very handy since, unlike optical and infra-red observations, radio is not obscured by the ubiquitous dust present in U/LIRGs, which allows a direct view of the ongoing activity in the hearts of those prolific star-forming galaxies. Here, I first justify the need for this high-angular resolution radio studies of local U/LIRGs, discuss the energy budget and the magnetic field, as well as IC and synchrotron losses in U/LIRGs, and present some selected results obtained by our team on high-angular resolution radio continuum studies of U/LIRGs. Among other results, I show the impressive discovery of an extremely prolific supernova factory in the central ~150 pc of the galaxy Arp 299-A (D=45 Mpc) and the monitoring of a large number of very compact radio sources in it, the detection and precise location of the long-sought AGN in Arp 299-A. A movie showing the appearance and disappearance of new SNe in Arp 299A can be found at http://www.iaa.es/~torres/research/arp299a.html. All those results demonstrate that very-high angular resolution studies of nearby U/LIRGs are of high relevance for the comprehension of both local and high-z starbursting galaxies.