A New Superwind Wolf-Rayet Galaxy Mrk 1259

摘要

We report the discovery of a starburst-driven wind (superwind) from thestarburst nucleus galaxy Mrk 1259. The estimated number ratio of Wolf-Rayet(WR) to O stars amounts to ~0.09. While the nuclear emission-line region is dueto usual photoionization by massive stars, the circumnuclear emission-lineregions show anomalous line ratios that can be due to cooling shocks. Since thehost galaxy seems to be a face-on disk galaxy and the excitation conditions ofthe circumnuclear emission-line regions show the spatial symmetry, we considerthat we are seeing the superwind nearly from a pole-on view. Cooling shockmodels may explain the observed emission line ratios of the circumnuclearregions although a factor of 2 overabundance of nitrogen is necessary. Allthese suggest that the high-mass enhanced starburst occurred ~5X10^6 years agoin the nuclear region of Mrk 1259.