Dark Matter and the Chemical Evolution of Irregular Galaxies

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Abstract
We present three types of chemical evolution models for irregular galaxies: closed-box with continuous star formation rates (SFRs), closed-box with bursting SFRs, and O-rich outflow with continuous SFRs. We discuss the chemical evolution of the irregular galaxies NGC 1560 and II Zw 33, and a "typical" irregular galaxy. The fraction of low-mass stars needed by our models is larger than that derived for the solar vicinity but is similar to that found in globular clusters. For our typical irregular galaxy we need a mass fraction of about 40% in the form of substellar objects plus nonbaryonic dark matter inside the Holmberg radius, in good agreement with the results derived for NGC 1560 and II Zw 33, where we do have an independent estimate of the mass fraction in nonbaryonic dark matter. Closed-box models are better than O-rich outflow models in explaining the C/O and Z/O observed values for our typical irregular galaxy.