Slowly cooking galaxies

Abstract

Recent spectroscopic observations of IZw~18 have revealed homogeneous abundance throughout the galaxy and several observations of other starburst galaxies have shown no significant gradient or discontinuity in the abundance distributions within the HII regions. I thus concur with Tenorio-Tagle (1996) and Devost et al. (1997) that these observed abundance homogeneities cannot be produced by the material ejected from the stars formed in the current burst and result from a previous star formation episode. Metals ejected in the current burst of star formation remain most probably hidden in a hot phase and are undetectable using optical spectroscopy. Combining various observational facts, for instance the faint star formation rate observed in low surface brightness galaxies (van Zee et al., 1997), I propose that a low and continuous star formation rate occurring during quiescent phases between bursts is a non negligible source of new elements in the interstellar medium. Using a spectrophotometric and chemical evolution model for galaxies, I investigated the star formation history IZw~18. I demonstrate that the continuous star formation scenario reproduces all the observed parameters of IZw~18. I discuss the consequences of such a quiet star formation regime.