M. Grossi, L. K. Hunt, S. C. Madden, C. Vlahakis, D. J. Bomans, M. Baes, G. J. Bendo, S. Bianchi, A. Boselli, M. Clemens, E. Corbelli, L. Cortese, A. Dariush, J. Davies, I. De Looze, S. Di Serego Alighieri, D. Fadda, J. Fritz, D. A. Garcia-Appadoo, G. Gavazzi, C. Giovanardi, T. Hughes, A. Jones, D. Pierini, M. Pohlen, S. Sabatini, M. W. L. Smith, J. Verstappen, E. M. Xilouris, S. Zibetti
Abstract
We present the dust properties of a small sample of Virgo cluster dwarf galaxies drawn from the science demonstration phase data set of the Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. These galaxies have low metallicities(7.8 < 12 + log(O/H) < 8.3) and star-formation rates ?10-1 M&sun; yr-1. We measure the spectral energy distribution(SED) from 100 to 500 mum and derive dust temperatures and dust masses. The SEDs are fitted by a cool component of temperature T ? 20 K, implying dust masses around 105 M&sun; and dust-to-gas ratios D within the range 10-3-10-2. The completion of the full survey will yield a larger set of galaxies, which will provide more stringent constraints on the dust content of star-forming dwarf galaxies. Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA.
Keywords
galaxies: dwarf – galaxies: ISM – dust - extinction – infrared: ISM
Notes
Section: Letters
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Volume 518, Number of pages L52_1
2010 July
