Paired and Interacting Galaxies: Conference Summary

Extract

This has been an excellent conference with a very international component and a rich and wide ranging diversity of views on the topical subject of paired and interacting galaxies. The southern hospitality shown to us by our hosts Jack Sulentic and Bill Keel has been most gracious and the general growth of the astronomy group at the University of Alabama is most impressive.

The conference began with the presentation of the basic data sets on pairs, groups, and interacting galaxies with the latter being further discussed with respect to both global properties and properties of the galactic nuclei. Then followed the theory, modelling and interpretation using analytic techniques, simulations and general modelling for spirals and ellipticals, starbursts and active galactic nuclei. Before the conference I had written down the three questions concerning pairs, groups and interacting galaxies that I hoped would be answered at the meeting: (1) How do they form? including the role of initial conditions, the importance of subclustering, the evolution of groups to compact groups, and the fate of compact groups; (2) How do they evolve? including issues such as relevant timescales, the role of halos and the problem of overmerging, the triggering and enhancement of star formation and activity in the galactic nuclei, and the relative importance of dwarf versus giant encounters; and (3) Are they important? including the frequency of pairs and interactions, whether merging and interactions are very important aspects of the life of a normal galaxy at formation, during its evolution, in forming bars, shells, rings, bulges etc., and in the formation and evolution of active galaxies. In what follows I shall summarize the meeting and where possible focus on these three central issues. Since this is a conference summary my references are all to papers presented at this meeting.