Collisional debris as laboratories to study star formation Boquien, Mérédic Duc, P.-A. Wu, Y. Charmandaris, V. Lisenfeld , Ute Braine, J. Brinks, E. Iglesias-Páramo, J. Xu, C. K. Galaxies Dwarf Interactions Irregular Infrared Star formation Ultraviolet In this paper we address the question whether star formation is driven by local processes or the large scale environment. To do so, we investigate star formation in collisional debris where the gravitational potential well and velocity gradients are shallower and compare our results with previous work on star formation in non-interacting spiral and dwarf galaxies. We have performed multiwavelength spectroscopic and imaging observations (from the far-ultraviolet to the mid-infrared) of 6 interacting systems, identifying a total of 60 star-forming regions in their collision debris. Our analysis indicates that in these regions a) the emission of the dust is at the expected level for their luminosity and metallicity, b) the usual tracers of star formation rate display the typical trend and scatter found in classical star forming regions, and c) the extinction and metallicity are not the main parameters governing the scatter in the properties of intergalactic star forming regions; age effects and variations in the number of stellar populations, seem to play an important role. Our work suggests that local properties such as column density and dust content, rather than the large scale environment seem to drive star formation. This means that intergalactic star forming regions can be used as a reliable tool to study star formation. 2013-10-09T11:47:13Z 2013-10-09T11:47:13Z 2009 info:eu-repo/semantics/preprint Boquien, M.; et al. Collisional debris as laboratories to study star formation. Astronomical Journal, 137(6): 4561-4576 (2009). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/28392] 0004-637X 1538-4357 arXiv:0903.3403v1 10.1088/0004-6256/137/6/4561 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/28392 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License American Astronomical Society; Institute of Physics (IOP)