Star formation and gas in the minor merger UGC 10214

Abstract

Minor mergers play a crucial role in galaxy evolution. UGC 10214 (the Tadpole galaxy) is a prime example of this process in which a dwarf galaxy has interacted with a large spiral galaxy ∼250 Myr ago and produced a perturbed disc and a giant tidal tail. We used a multi-wavelength dataset that partly consists of new observations (Hα, HI, and CO) and partly of archival data to study the present and past star formation rate (SFR) and its relation to the gas and stellar mass at a spatial resolution down to 4 kpc. UGC 10214 is a high-mass (stellar mass M⋆ = 1.28 × 1011 M⊙) galaxy with a low gas fraction (Mgas/M⋆ = 0.24), a high molecular gas fraction (MH2/MHI = 0.4), and a modest SFR (2–5 M⊙ yr−1). The global SFR compared to its stellar mass places UGC 10214 on the galaxy main sequence (MS). The comparison of the molecular gas mass and current SFR gives a molecular gas depletion time of about ∼2 Gyr (based on Hα), comparable to those of normal spiral galaxies. Both from a comparison of the Hα emission, tracing the current SFR, and far-ultraviolet (FUV) emission, tracing the recent SFR during the past tens of Myr, and also from spectral energy distribution fitting with CIGALE, we find that the SFR has increased by a factor of about 2–3 during the recent past. This increase is particularly noticeable in the centre of the galaxy where a pronounced peak of the Hα emission is visible. A pixel-to-pixel comparison of the SFR, molecular gas mass, and stellar mass shows that the central region has had a depressed FUV-traced SFR compared to the molecular gas and the stellar mass, whereas the Hα-traced SFR shows a normal level. The atomic and molecular gas distribution is asymmetric, but the position-velocity diagram along the major axis shows a pattern of regular rotation. We conclude that the minor merger has most likely caused variations in the SFR in the past that resulted in a moderate increase of the SFR, but it has not perturbed the gas significantly so that the molecular depletion time remains normal.