Characterizing the Nuclear Properties of Post-Starburst Galaxies

The role played by active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the evolution of galaxiesfrom an actively starforming state to quiescence is still poorly understood.Post starburst galaxies, particularly those caught early in their transition,provide an important testing ground for examining this question. There are hintsthat a large fraction of poststarburst galaxies may contain AGN or AGNdrivenactivity. We undertook a 10ks snapshot survey of 12 poststarburst galaxies withChandra and detected Xray emission in 9 of the 12 observed. However, these datahave in sufficient counts to determine the nature of this emission anddistinguish between AGN and thermal emission. We propose to observe two of themost interesting galaxies from this sample in order to characterize their nuclear emission. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]