Wednesday

Blue compact dwarf galaxies (BCDs) are low metallicity star-forming galaxies, as such they are thought to be excellent local analogues/proxies of high redshift galaxies. By studying the properties of the interstellar medium of these less-evolved local systems, we can probe and predict the properties of the primordial faint galaxies, which are not readily accessible using present technology. This is one of the reasons why BCDs have been the focus of many imaging, spectroscopic and integral field spectroscopic (IFS) studies for over two decades. IFS is the best available technique to study these galaxies hosting star-forming regions, because it not only allows us to access information encoded in the emission lines from the star-forming regions, but also enables us to map their distribution and varying properties throughout each system. We use IFS observations from the Gemini North Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS-N) to study the H II regions in a sample of BCDs. The IFS data enable us to explore the variation of physical and chemical conditions of the star-forming regions and the surrounding gas on spatial scales as small as ~5 pc. The primary goal of this analysis is to spatially-resolve the chemical distribution of the ionised gas in order to search for chemical inhomogeneity and its possible causes, with the eventual aim of shedding light on some of the secrets of the key mechanisms involved in galaxy formation and evolution.