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arXiv · 2508.11124

SQ-A: A Collision Triggered Starburst in Intra-Group Medium of Stephan's Quintet

C. K. Xu·C. Cheng·M. S. Yun·P. N. Appleton·B. H. C. Emonts·J. Braine·S. C. Gallagher·P. Guillard·U. Lisenfeld·E. OSullivan·F. Renaud·P. Aromal·P. -A. Duc·A. Labiano·A. Togi
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Abstract

We present new observational evidence supporting the hypothesis that SQ-A, a starburst in the intra-group medium (IGrM) of Stephan's Quintet (SQ), is triggered by a high-speed collision between two gas systems, one associated with the IGrM (v~6900 km/s) and another with the intruder galaxy NGC7318b (v~6000 km/s). The new ALMA CO(2-1) dataset has angular resolutions between 0.2" and 7.0" and the new VLA HI datacube an angular resolution of 6.6" * 7.9". The CO maps show that the two gas systems are bridged by another system with an intermediate velocity of ~6600 km/s, whereas the HI data show that the component of v~6600 km/s fits well into a gap in the more extended v~6000 km/s component, albeit with a displacement of ~5 kpc. Both the bridge and the complementary distributions between different gas systems are common features of starbursts triggered by cloud-cloud collision. An analysis of clumps (sizes of 100--200 pc) reveals very diversified star formation (SF) activity in clumps belonging to different kinematic systems, with the molecular gas depletion time of the v~6900 km/s clumps more than 10 times longer than that of the v~6600 km/s clumps. The results are consistent with a scenario in which the enhanced SF activity (and the starburst) in the system of v~6600 km/s is due to gas compression generated in cloud-cloud collisions, whereas the suppression of SF in the v~6900 km/s system is due to vortices (i.e. gas rotation) generated in more complex collisions involving dense clouds and diffuse intercloud gas accompanied by blast-wave shocks.

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C. K. Xu, C. Cheng, M. S. Yun, P. N. Appleton, B. H. C. Emonts, J. Braine, S. C. Gallagher, P. Guillard, U. Lisenfeld, E. OSullivan, F. Renaud, P. Aromal, P. -A. Duc, A. Labiano, A. Togi. 2025-08-15. SQ-A: A Collision Triggered Starburst in Intra-Group Medium of Stephan's Quintet. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11124

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