The Evolution of Tidal Debris

Abstract

Galaxy interactions expel a significant amount of stars and gas into the surrounding environment. I review the formation and evolution of the tidal debris spawned during these collisions, and describe how this evolution depends on the large scale environment in which the galaxies live. In addition to acting as a long-lived tracer of the interaction history of galaxies, the evolution of this material -- on both large scales and small -- has important ramifications for galactic recycling processes, the feeding of the intracluster light and intracluster medium within galaxy clusters, and the delayed formation of galactic disks and dwarf galaxies.