The star formation histories of Hickson compact group galaxies

Abstract: ABRIDGED: We study the Star Formation History (SFH) of 210 galaxies members of 55 Hickson Compact Groups (HCG) and 309 galaxies from the Catalog of Isolated Galaxies (CIG). The SFH traces the variation of star formation over the lifetime of a galaxy, and yields consequently a snapshot picture of its formation. Comparing the SFHs in these extremes in galaxy density, allows us to determine the main effects of Compact Groups (CG) on the formation of galaxies. We fit our spectra using the spectral synthesis code STARLIGHT and obtain the stellar population contents and mean stellar ages of HCG and CIG galaxies in three different morphological classes: early-type galaxies (EtG), early-type spirals (EtS), and late-type spirals (LtS). We find that EtG and EtS galaxies in HCG show larger contents of old and intermediate stellar populations as well as an important deficit of the young stellar population, what clearly implies an older average stellar age in early galaxies in HCG. For LtS galaxies we find similar mean values for the stellar content and age in the two samples. However, we note that LtS can be split into two subclasses, namely old and young LtS. In HCG we find a higher fraction of young LtS than in the CIG sample, in addition, most of these galaxies belong to groups where most of the galaxies are also young and actively forming stars. The Specific Star Formation Rate (SSFR) of spiral galaxies in the two samples differ. EtS in HCG show lower values of the SSFR, while LtS peak at higher values when comparing with their counterparts in isolation. We have also measured shorter Star Formation Time Scale (SFTS) in HCG galaxies, indicating that they have less prolonged star formation activity than CIG galaxies.