HII regions in interacting galaxies

Numerical simulations suggest that the total detachment of the tidal dwarf requires the companion's mass to be comparable to or higher than that of the parent galaxy. This would imply that minor mergers (interaction between unequal mass galaxies) might not form tidal dwarf galaxies (TDGs).

The objectives of the paper is to analyse the main properties of a sample of 116 HII regions previously selected from H{alpha} images of 11 minor mergers of galaxies and discuss the nature of these regions comparing their properties with those observed in HII regions in normal and isolated galaxies and TDG candidates. Individual parameters such as: blue absolute magnitude, MB, H{alpha} luminosity, L(H{alpha}), star formation rate, SFR(H{alpha}) and mass, M/M_{sun}_ of these regions were derived and compared with those of the HII regions in normal isolated galaxies, as well as in tidal dwarf candidates.