가까운 은하에서 폭발적 항성생성은하의 분광 관측을 수행하여 별생성률이 높은 은하에서 별생성이 일어나는 시 간 규모에 따라 방출선의 방출 기작, 별생성률, 항성질량, 금속함량 등의 물리량 혹은 물리량 상호 간의 관계가 어떻게 다른지를 살펴보았다. 관측 대상은 별생성 나이가 매우 어린 울프-레이에 은하 21개와 상대적으로 긴 시간 규모의 별생 성이 진행 중인 자외선 초과복사 은하 13개로 보현산 천문대의 1.8 m 망원경과 4K CCD, 긴 슬릿 분광기를 이용해 광학 영역에서의 스펙트럼을 얻었다. BPT 분석도표를 그려 관측된 은하들에서 기체를 이온화시키는 원인을 살펴보면 전체적 으로는 별생성(약 50%)이 비항성적 요소인 활동은하핵(약 15%)에 비해 훨씬 높았다. 별생성과 활동은하핵이 모두 기여하 는 경우도 전체의 35%였는데, 이러한 경우에 속하는 은하는 대부분 상대적으로 나이가 많을 것으로 추정되는 자외선 초 과복사 은하였다. 관측된 은하의 항성질량 범위는 대부분 109-11 M⊙이고 별생성률은 0.01-100 M⊙ yr−1로, SDSS에서 관측 된 은하들로 구성된 별생성 주계열에 위치한다. 울프-레이에 은하와 자외선 초과복사 은하들의 항성질량, 별생성률에서 큰 차이는 없었다. 또한 폭발적 항성생성은하는 질량-금속함량 관계를 보이며, 비슷한 항성질량을 가진 SDSS 은하와 비 교했을 때 금속함량이 낮게 나타났다. 이는 이 은하들에서 별생성으로 인한 강한 피드백이 일어나고 있음을 보여준다.

Starburst galaxies have strong star formation activity and generate large scale out ows which eject a huge amount of gas mass. This process affects galaxy activity, and therefore, the detailed study of nearby starburst galaxies could provide valuable information for the study of distant ones. So far there have been only a few studies of galactic-scale molecular out ows due to the sensitivity limitation of telescopes. Our study provides two nearby examples, NGC 2146 and NGC 3628. We used Nobeyama Millimeter Array (NMA) CO(1-0) data, Chandra soft X-ray data, and NMA 3 mm data to study the kinematics of molecular outflows, their interaction with ionized outflows, and the star forming activity in the starburst region. We found that the gas ejected through molecular outflows is much more significant than that used to form stars.

Using extensive mid-IR datasets from AKARI, i.e. 9-band photometry covering the wavelength range from 2μm to 24μm and the unbiased spectroscopic survey for sources with Sν(9μm)>0.3 mJy, we study starburst galaxies specifically at the redshift of z ~ 0.5, whose mid-IR spectra are clearly dominated by the PAH emission features. PAH-selected galaxies, selected with extremely red mid-IR colour due to PAHs, have high rest-frame PAH-to-stellar luminosity ratios, comparable to those in the most active regions in nearby starburst galaxies. Thus, they seem to have active starburst regions spreading over the whole body. Furthermore, some of PAH-selected galaxies are found to have peculiar rest-frame 11-to- 8μm flux ratios, which is systematically smaller than nearby starburst/AGN spectral templates. This may indicate a systematic difference in the physical condition of ISM between nearby and distant starburst galaxies.

We present optical and near-infrared imaging and long-slit spectroscopy for the blue compact dwarf galaxy (BCD) Mrk 49 in the Virgo Cluster. The surface brightness distribution analysis shows that Mrk 49 consists of an off-centered blue bright compact core of r = 10′′ and a red faint outer exponential envelope. The Hα image and color difference suggest that these two components have different stellar populations: a high surface brightness population of massive young stars and an underlying low surface brightness population of older stars. The redder near-infrared colors of the inner most region suggest that the near-infrared flux of Mrk 49 originates from evolved massive stars associated with the current star-forming activity. The total apparent magnitude is BT = 14.32 mag and the mean effective surface brightness is μeff (B) = 21.56 mag arcsec−2. Long-slit spectroscopy shows that Mrk 49 rotates apparently as a solid body within r = 10′′ in a plane at position angle 55 degrees with an amplitude of about 20 km sec−1. The measured radial velocity of Mrk 49 was derived as 1,535 km sec−1; and the total mass of stars and gases is in the range of 3 to 6 × 109 M⊙. The mass-to-light ratios for the central region of Mrk 49 in I and B band are estimated 1.0 and 0.5, respectively. The upper limit of the dark matter to visible matter ratio seems to be < 5. The oxygen abundance is 12 + log(O/H) = 8.21 ± 0.1 which is about one quarter of the solar value while the relative helium abundance appears to be similar to that of the sun.

P-Cygni type Lyα from starburst galaxies, either nearby galaxies or Lyman Break galaxies, are believed to be formed by galactic outflows such as galactic supershells or galactic superwinds. We develope a Monte Carlo code to calculate the Lyα line transfer in a galactic supershell which is expanding and formed of uniform and dusty neutral hydrogen gas. The escape of Lyα photons from the system is achieved by a number of back-scatterings. A series of emission peaks are formed by back-scatterings. When we observe P-Cygni type Lyα emissions of starforming galaxies, we can usually see merely singly-peaked emission. Hence the secondary and the tertiary emission humps should be destroyed. In order to do this, dust should be spatially more extended into the inner cavity than neutral supershell. We find that the kinematic information of the expanding supershell is conserved even in dusty media. We discuss the astrophysical applications of our results.

Almost half of primeval galaxies show P-Cygni type profiles in the Lyα emission line. The main underlying mechanism for the profile formation in these systems is thought to be the frequency re-distribution of the line photons in expanding scattering media surrounding the emission source. A Monte Carlo code is developed to investigate the Lyα line transfer in an optically thick and moving medium with a careful consideration of the scattering in the damping wings. Typical column densities and expansion velocities of neutral hydrogen investigated in this study are NH1 ~10 17-20 cm -2 and ΔV ~ 100 km s-1. We investigate the dependence of the emergent profiles on the kinematics and on the column density. Our numerical results are applied to show that the damped Lyα absorbers may possess an expanding H I supershell with bulk flow of ~ 200 km s-l and H I column density NH1 ~ 10 19 cm -2. We briefly discuss the observational implications.