Bibcode
DOI
Vaduvescu, Ovidiu; McCall, Marshall L.; Richer, Michael G.
Bibliographical reference
The Astronomical Journal, Volume 134, Issue 2, pp. 604-616.
Advertised on:
8
2007
Citations
39
Refereed citations
36
Description
Recent studies of the near-infrared (NIR) properties of dwarf irregular
galaxies (dIs) and blue compact dwarfs (BCDs) have provided improved
estimates for the NIR luminosity of old stellar populations in these
galaxies. These can be used to derive gas fractions, and thereby to
evaluate how BCDs have evolved with respect to dIs. Oxygen abundances
have been derived for four BCDs in the Virgo Cluster from a run at
Gemini-North in 2003. Combining these new abundances with published
values, we study the correlations among the metallicity, Ks
luminosity, gas mass, baryonic mass, and gas fraction. Within errors,
the two types of dwarfs appear to share a common relation between the
oxygen abundance and the luminosity in Ks. The correlation
between metallicity and the gas fraction is the same for BCDs as for
dIs, indicating that BCD evolution has been similar to that of dIs.
Since dIs appear to have evolved as isolated systems, the BCD bursts are
unlikely to be a consequence of gas infall or merging.