Bibcode
Kunth, Daniel; Legrand, Françcois; Tenorio-Tagle, Guillermo; Silich, Sergey; Mas-Hesse, J. Miguel; Cerviño, M.
Bibliographical reference
Astrophysics and Space Science, v. 281, Issue 1, p. 261-266 (2002).
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7
2002
Journal
Citations
3
Refereed citations
2
Description
We show evidences that gas outflows occur in starburst galaxies as
superbubbles evolve. We then question whether hot gas will be expelled
and enrich the IGM with metals or be retained within the host galaxy.
For this purpose we construct three extreme scenarios of the star
formation histories for a sample of dwarf galaxies using either their
present metallicity or their luminosity. The three scenarios imply
different mechanical energy input rates, those are compared with
theoretical lower limits for the ejection of processed matter out of
host galaxies. The comparison strongly points at the existence of
extended gaseous haloes acting as a barrier that allows these galaxies
to retain their metals and enhance their abundance. Our findings
strongly point that continuous star-forming processes, rather than
coeval bursts, must contribute to the overall metallicity in our galaxy
sample.