Thursday, November 15, 2007

Faint Irregular Galaxies

Gas rich galaxies from the FIGGS survey
The FIGGS (Faint Irregular Galaxy GMRT Survey) is aimed at creating a multi-wavelength observational data base for a volume limited sample of the faintest gas rich galaxies.

Some of these objects have very extreme dynamical mass to light ratios. Over 100 in some cases.
These very large dynamical mass to blue luminosity ratios naturally lead one to ask whether extremely gas rich dwarf galaxies have abnormally small baryon fractions, i.e. have they just been inefficient at forming stars, or did they end up with less than the typical baryon fraction?

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