Merger-Induced Starbursts

Starburst galaxies are extremely luminous objects with an abundance of young massive stars and a disturbed optical morphology. Famous examples such as the Antennae, involve major mergers, but the starburst phenomenon can also be triggered in a more gentle, minor merger. Such an event disturbs but does not disrupt the primary galaxy (i.e. the primary will recover from the interaction without a drastic jump along the Hubble sequence). In such an interaction a significant number of super-star clusters (SSCs) are formed,which may be the progenitors of present-day globular clusters. The ubiquity of globular cluster systems among a wide range of galaxy types suggests that these interactions play a significant role in the evolution of ‘normal’ galaxies. Therefore to understand the formation and evolution of galaxies, it is essential to understand such processes. Here we present a HST WFPC2 broad-band study of three starburst galaxies with different merger histories. This revised version was published online in September 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.