abstract: Green pea galaxies are a class of rare, compact starburst galaxies that have powerful optical emission line [OIII]$\lambda$5007. They are the best low-redshift analogs of high-redshift (z$>$2) Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies (LAEs). They provide unique opportunities to study physical conditions in high-redshift LAEs in great detail. In this dissertation, a few physical properties of green peas are investigated. The first study in the dissertation presents star formation rate (SFR) surface density, thermal pressure in HII regions, and a correlation between them for 17 green peas and 19 Lyman break analogs, which are nearby analogs of high-redshift Lyman break galaxies. This correlation is consistent with that found from the star-forming galaxies at z $\sim$ 2.5. In the second study, a new large sample of 835 green peas in the redshift range z = 0.011 -- 0.411 are assembled from Data Release 13 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with the equivalent width of the line [OIII]$\lambda$5007 $>$ 300\AA\ or the equivalent width of the line H$\beta$ $>$ 100\AA. The size of this new sample is ten times that of the original 80 star-forming green pea sample. With reliable T$_e$-based gas-phase metallicity measurements for the 835 green peas, a new empirical calibration of R23 (defined as ([OIII]$\lambda$$\lambda$4959,5007 + [OII]$\lambda$$\lambda$3726,3729)/H$\beta$) for strong line emitters is then derived. The double-value degeneracy of the metallicity is broken for galaxies with large ionization parameter (which manifests as log([OIII]$\lambda$$\lambda$4959,5007/[OII]$\lambda$$\lambda$3726,3729) $\geq$ 0.6). This calibration offers a good way to estimate metallicities for extreme emission-line galaxies and high-redshift LAEs. The third study presents stellar mass measurements and the stellar mass-metallicity relation of 828 green peas from the second study. The stellar mass covers 6 orders of magnitude in the range 10$^{5}$ -- 10$^{11}$ M$_{\odot}$, with a median value of 10$^{8.8}$ M$_{\odot}$. The stellar mass-metallicity relation of green peas is flatter and displays about 0.2 - 0.5 dex offset to lower metallicities in the range of stellar mass higher than 10$^{8}$ M$_{\odot}$ compared to the local SDSS star-forming galaxies. A significant dependence of the stellar mass-metallicity relation on star formation rate is not found in this work. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Astrophysics 2018

We present an extremely deep CO(1-0) observation of a confirmed z = 1.62 galaxy cluster. We detect two spectroscopically confirmed cluster members in CO(1-0) with signal-to-noise ratio >5. Both galaxies have log (M-star/M-circle dot) > 11 and are gas rich, with M-mol/(M-star + M-mol) similar to 0.17-0.45. One of these galaxies lies on the star formation rate (SFR)-M-star sequence, while the other lies an order of magnitude below. We compare the cluster galaxies to other SFR-selected galaxies with CO measurements and find that they have CO luminosities consistent with expectations given their infrared luminosities. We also find that they have gas fractions and star formation efficiencies (SFE) comparable to what is expected from published field galaxy scaling relations. The galaxies are compact in their stellar light distribution, at the extreme end for all high-redshift star-forming galaxies. However, their SFE is consistent with other field galaxies at comparable compactness. This is similar to two other sources selected in a blind CO survey of the HDF-N. Despite living in a highly quenched protocluster core, the molecular gas properties of these two galaxies, one of which may be in the process of quenching, appear entirely consistent with field scaling relations between the molecular gas content, stellar mass, star formation rate, and redshift. We speculate that these cluster galaxies cannot have any further substantive gas accretion if they are to become members of the dominant passive population in z < 1 clusters.

We investigate the relation between gas and star formation in subgalactic regions, similar to 360. pc to similar to 1.5. kpc in size, within the nearby starburst dwarf NGC 4449, in order to separate the underlying relation from the effects of sampling at varying spatial scales. Dust and gas mass surface densities are derived by combining new observations at 1.1. mm, obtained with the AzTEC instrument on the Large Millimeter Telescope, with archival infrared images in the range 8-500 mu m from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Herschel Space Observatory. We extend the dynamic range of our millimeter (and dust) maps at the faint end, using a correlation between the far-infrared/millimeter colors F(70)/F(1100) (and F(160)/F(1100)) and the mid-infrared color F(8)/F(24) that we establish for the first time for this and other galaxies. Supplementing our data with maps of the extinction-corrected star formation rate (SFR) surface density, we measure both the SFR-molecular gas and the SFR-total. gas relations in NGC 4449. We find that the SFR-molecular. gas relation is described by a power law with an exponent that decreases from similar to 1.5 to similar to 1.2 for increasing region size, while the exponent of the SFR-total. gas relation remains constant with a value of similar to 1.5 independent of region size. We attribute the molecular law behavior to the increasingly better sampling of the molecular cloud mass function at larger region sizes; conversely, the total gas law behavior likely results from the balance between the atomic and molecular gas phases achieved in regions of active star formation. Our results indicate a nonlinear relation between SFR and gas surface density in NGC 4449, similar to what is observed for galaxy samples.

We present an analysis of high-resolution ALMA interferometry of CO(4-3) line emission and dust continuum in the "Ruby" (PLCK_G244.8+54.9), a bright, gravitationally lensed galaxy at z = 3.0 discovered with the Planck all-sky survey. The Ruby is the brightest of Planck's dusty GEMS, a sample of 11 of the brightest gravitationally lensed high-redshift galaxies on the extragalactic sub-mm sky. We resolve the high-surface-brightness continuum and CO line emission of the Ruby in several extended clumps along a partial, nearly circular Einstein ring with 1.4 '' diameter around a massive galaxy at z = 1.5. Local star-formation intensities are up to 2000 M-circle dot yr(-1) kpc(-2), amongst the highest observed at high redshift, and clearly in the range of maximal starbursts. Gas-mass surface densities are a few x10(4) M-circle dot pc(-2). The Ruby lies at, and in part even above, the starburst sequence in the Schmidt-Kennicutt diagram, and at the limit expected for star formation that is self-regulated through the kinetic energy injection from radiation pressure, stellar winds, and supernovae. We show that these processes can also inject sufficient kinetic energy and momentum into the gas to explain the turbulent line widths, which are consistent with marginally gravitationally bound molecular clouds embedded in a critically Toomre-stable disk. The star-formation efficiency is in the range 1-10% per free-fall time, consistent with the notion that the pressure balance that sets the local star-formation law in the Milky Way may well be universal out to the highest star-formation intensities. AGN feedback is not necessary to regulate the star formation in the Ruby, in agreement with the absence of a bright AGN component in the infrared and radio regimes.

Interactions between pairs of isolated dwarf galaxies provide a critical window into low-mass hierarchical, gas-dominated galaxy assembly and the build-up of stellar mass in low-metallicity systems. We present the first Very Large Telescope/Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (VLT/MUSE) optical integral field unit (IFU) observations of the interacting dwarf pair dm1647+21 selected from the TiNy Titans survey. The Ha emission is widespread and corresponds to a total unobscured star formation rate (SFR) of 0.44 M-circle dot yr(-1), which is 2.7 times higher than the SFR inferred from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. The implied specific SFR (sSFR) for the system is elevated by more than an order of magnitude above non-interacting dwarfs in the same mass range. This increase is dominated by the lower-mass galaxy, which has a sSFR enhancement of > 50. Examining the spatially resolved maps of classic optical line diagnostics, we find that the interstellar medium (ISM) excitation can be fully explained by star formation. The velocity field of the ionized gas is not consistent with simple rotation. Dynamical simulations indicate that the irregular velocity field and the stellar structure is consistent with the identification of this system as an ongoing interaction between two dwarf galaxies. The widespread, clumpy enhancements in the star formation in this system point to important differences in the effect of mergers on dwarf galaxies, compared to massive galaxies; rather than the funneling of gas to the nucleus and giving rise to a nuclear starburst, starbursts in low-mass galaxy mergers may be triggered by large-scale ISM compression, and thus may be more distributed.

We combine state-of-the-art models for the production of stellar radiation and its transfer through the interstellar medium (ISM) to investigate ultraviolet-line diagnostics of stars, the ionized and the neutral ISM in star-forming galaxies. We start by assessing the reliability of our stellar population synthesis modelling by fitting absorption-line indices in the ISM-free ultraviolet spectra of 10 Large Magellanic Cloud clusters. In doing so, we find that neglecting stochastic sampling of the stellar initial mass function in these young (similar to 10-100 Myr), low-mass clusters affects negligibly ultraviolet-based age and metallicity estimates but can lead to significant overestimates of stellar mass. Then, we proceed and develop a simple approach, based on an idealized description of the main features of the ISM, to compute in a physically consistent way the combined influence of nebular emission and interstellar absorption on ultraviolet spectra of star-forming galaxies. Our model accounts for the transfer of radiation through the ionized interiors and outer neutral envelopes of short-lived stellar birth clouds, as well as for radiative transfer through a diffuse intercloud medium. We use this approach to explore the entangled signatures of stars, the ionized and the neutral ISM in ultraviolet spectra of star-forming galaxies. We find that, aside from a few notable exceptions, most standard ultraviolet indices defined in the spectra of ISM-free stellar populations are prone to significant contamination by the ISM, which increases with metallicity. We also identify several nebular-emission and interstellar-absorption features, which stand out as particularly clean tracers of the different phases of the ISM.

We present new CO (1-0) observations of 11 extragalactic tails and bridges in nine interacting galaxy systems, almost doubling the number of such features with sensitive CO measurements. Eight of these 11 features were undetected in CO to very low CO/H I limits, with the most extreme case being the NGC 7714/5 bridge. This bridge contains luminous H II regions and has a very high H I column density (1.6 × 1021 cm-2 in the 55″ CO beam), yet was undetected in CO to rms T*R = 2.4 mK. The H I column density is higher than standard H2 and CO self-shielding limits for solar-metallicity gas, suggesting that the gas in this bridge is metal-poor and has an enhanced NH2/ICO ratio compared with the Galactic value. Only one of the 11 features in our sample was unambiguously detected in CO, a luminous H I-rich star formation region near an optical tail in the compact group Stephan's Quintet. We detect CO at two widely separated velocities in this feature, at ∼6000 and ∼6700 km s-1. Both of these components have H I and Hα counterparts. These velocities correspond to those of galaxies in the group, suggesting that this gas is material that has been removed from two galaxies in the group. The CO/ H I/Hα ratios for both components are similar to global values for spiral galaxies.

Using archived data from the Chandra X-ray telescope, we have extracted the diffuse X-ray emission from 49 equal-mass interacting/merging galaxy pairs in a merger sequence, from widely separated pairs to merger remnants. After the removal of contributions from unresolved point sources, we compared the diffuse thermal X-ray luminosity from hot gas (L X(gas)) with the global star formation rate (SFR). After correction for absorption within the target galaxy, we do not see a strong trend of L X(gas)/SFR with the SFR or merger stage for galaxies with SFR > 1 Myr-1. For these galaxies, the median L X(gas)/SFR is 5.5 ×1039 ((erg s-1)/Myr-1)), similar to that of normal spiral galaxies. These results suggest that stellar feedback in star-forming galaxies reaches an approximately steady-state condition, in which a relatively constant fraction of about 2% of the total energy output from supernovae and stellar winds is converted into X-ray flux. Three late-stage merger remnants with low SFRs and high K-band luminosities (L K ) have enhanced L X(gas)/SFR; their UV/IR/optical colors suggest that they are post-starburst galaxies, perhaps in the process of becoming ellipticals. Systems with L K < 1010 L have lower L X(gas)/SFR ratios than the other galaxies in our sample, perhaps due to lower gravitational fields or lower metallicities. We see no relation between L X(gas)/SFR and Seyfert activity in this sample, suggesting that feedback from active galactic nuclei is not a major contributor to the hot gas in our sample galaxies.

In this thesis we present cloud-scale ALMA observations of two local mergers, NGC 3256 and NGC 4038/9 (the "Antennae"), in CO J=2-1. Through a pixel-based analysis of NGC 3256 we measure molecular-gas properties and compare to nearby spiral galaxies from the PHANGS-ALMA survey. NGC 3256 exhibits high mass surface densities, velocity dispersions, peak brightness temperatures, virial parameters, and internal turbulent pressures. High surface densities are expected to accompany its high star-formation rate, and high brightness temperatures may indicate warmer gas, heated by the vigorous star formation. Large virial parameters and internal pressures imply the molecular gas is not bound by self-gravity, but we explore how material external to clouds could alter this. We argue the molecular gas in NGC 3256 is smoother than in nearby spiral galaxies down to 55 pc. We also perform a cloud analysis of our NGC 3256 observations, identifying 185 clouds, and find similar results to the pixel analysis. We calculate additional cloud properties including eccentricity, CO luminosity, CO-estimated mass, virial mass, size-linewidth coefficient, and free-fall time. Properties in NGC 3256 are extreme compared to clouds from PHANGS-ALMA, including slightly larger clouds and shorter free-fall times. Cloud eccentricities in NGC 3256 are similar to those in PHANGS-ALMA galaxies, possibly indicating similar average cloud dynamical states. The shape of the cloud mass function in NGC 3256 is similar to many PHANGS-ALMA galaxies. Finally, we analyse our NGC 4038/9 observations using the same pixel methods as used in NGC 3256. NGC 4038/9 also harbours extreme molecular-gas properties and potentially smoother emission compared to spiral galaxies, but not as extreme as NGC 3256. We find the most-massive spiral galaxies have central molecular-gas properties similar to the mergers. Virial parameters in NGC 4038/9 are similar to many spiral galaxies, making it quite different from NGC 3256, potentially due to their different merger stages. Comparison of the overlap region of NGC 4038/9 in CO (2-1) to CO (3-2) shows general agreement. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)