LOCAL BENCHMARKS FOR THE EVOLUTION OF MAJOR-MERGER GALAXIES-SPITZER OBSERVATIONS OF A K-BAND SELECTED SAMPLE

We present Spitzer observations for a sample of close major-merger galaxy pairs (KPAIR sample) selected from cross-matches between the Two Micron All Sky Survey and Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 3. The goals are to study the star formation activity in these galaxies and to set a local bench mark for the cosmic evolution of close major mergers. The Spitzer KPAIR sample (27 pairs, 54 galaxies) includes all spectroscopically confirmed spiral-spiral (S+S) and spiral-elliptical (S+E) pairs in a parent sample that is complete for primaries brighter than K = 12.5 mag, projected separations of 5 h(-1) kpc <= s <= 20 h(-1) kpc, and mass ratios <= 2.5. The Spitzer data, consisting of images in seven bands (3.6, 4.5, 5.8, 8, 24, 70, 160 mu m), show very diversified IR emission properties. Compared to single spiral galaxies in a control sample, only spiral galaxies in S+S pairs show significantly enhanced specific star formation rate (sSFR = SFR/M), whereas spiral galaxies in S+E pairs do not. Furthermore, the SFR enhancement of spiral galaxies in S+S pairs is highly mass-dependent. Only those with M greater than or similar to 10(10.5) M-circle dot show significant enhancement. Relatively low-mass (M similar to 10(10) M circle dot) spirals in S+S pairs have about the same SFR/M compared to their counterparts in the control sample, while those with 10(11) M-circle dot have on average a similar to 3 times higher SFR/M than single spirals. There is evidence for a correlation between the global star formation activities (but not the nuclear activities) of the component galaxies in massive S+S major-merger pairs (the Holmberg effect). There is no significant difference in the SFR/M between the primaries and the secondaries, nor between spirals of SEP < 1 and those of SEP >= 1, SEP being the normalized separation parameter. The contribution of KPAIR galaxies to the cosmic SFR density in the local universe is only 1.7%, and amounts (rho) over dot(KPAIR) = 2.54 x 10(-4) (M-circle dot yr(-1) Mpc(-3)).