Star Formation Evolution in Galaxy Pairs: Constraints from Morphological Disturbances and Recent Star Formation Histories
Abstract
Galaxy interactions can enhance star formation, but how star formation evolves during galaxy interactions remains poorly constrained by observations. We combine pair separation, morphological disturbance, and recent star formation history to study this evolution. We measure morphological disturbance with the shape asymmetry parameter (Ashape) using deep images from the DESI Legacy Surveys, and use Galaxy Zoo DESI classifications as an independent test. We infer recent star formation histories by comparing SFR and EW(Hα), which trace current star formation, with EW(HδA) and Dn4000, which are sensitive to stellar populations formed over longer timescales. At small projected separations, strongly disturbed galaxies show the strongest enhancements in SFR and EW(Hα), indicating that close encounters trigger strong star formation. At intermediate separations (dp∼100 kpc), their current star formation is only moderately enhanced, but their EW(HδA) enhancement is the strongest. This indicates a larger contribution from intermediate-age stars formed during stronger star formation in the past ∼0.1--1 Gyr. The TNG100 analysis shows that this pattern results from rapid changes in SFR around close passage. SFR rises sharply during the encounter and declines as the galaxies move apart, while tidal disturbances remain visible. As short-lived massive stars disappear and intermediate-age A-type stars begin to dominate the spectrum, the EW(HδA) enhancement peaks later than the SFR enhancement. Our results provide important observational evidence for the evolution of SFR along the merger sequence.
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BibTeX
@misc{geng2026star,
title = {{Star Formation Evolution in Galaxy Pairs: Constraints from Morphological Disturbances and Recent Star Formation Histories}},
author = {Shaoze Geng and Shuai Feng and Shuhao Chen and Yaotian Duan and Shiyin Shen and Cailu Shi and Linlin Li and Yijin Niu and Bingxi Huo and Wenyuan Cui and Guozhen Hu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.04560},
eprint = {2609.04560},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04560},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Star Formation Evolution in Galaxy Pairs: Constraints from Morphological Disturbances and Recent Star Formation Histories
AU - Shaoze Geng
AU - Shuai Feng
AU - Shuhao Chen
AU - Yaotian Duan
AU - Shiyin Shen
AU - Cailu Shi
AU - Linlin Li
AU - Yijin Niu
AU - Bingxi Huo
AU - Wenyuan Cui
AU - Guozhen Hu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/03
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.04560
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04560
AB - Galaxy interactions can enhance star formation, but how star formation evolves during galaxy interactions remains poorly constrained by observations. We combine pair separation, morphological disturbance, and recent star formation history to study this evolution. We measure morphological disturbance with the shape asymmetry parameter (A_shape) using deep images from the DESI Legacy Surveys, and use Galaxy Zoo DESI classifications as an independent test. We infer recent star formation histories by comparing SFR and EW(Hα), which trace current star formation, with EW(Hδ_A) and D_n4000, which are sensitive to stellar populations formed over longer timescales. At small projected separations, strongly disturbed galaxies show the strongest enhancements in SFR and EW(Hα), indicating that close encounters trigger strong star formation. At intermediate separations (d_p∼100 kpc), their current star formation is only moderately enhanced, but their EW(Hδ_A) enhancement is the strongest. This indicates a larger contribution from intermediate-age stars formed during stronger star formation in the past ∼0.1--1 Gyr. The TNG100 analysis shows that this pattern results from rapid changes in SFR around close passage. SFR rises sharply during the encounter and declines as the galaxies move apart, while tidal disturbances remain visible. As short-lived massive stars disappear and intermediate-age A-type stars begin to dominate the spectrum, the EW(Hδ_A) enhancement peaks later than the SFR enhancement. Our results provide important observational evidence for the evolution of SFR along the merger sequence.
ER -