Dynamical Modeling of Luminous Infrared Galaxy Mergers

It is widely accepted that galaxy mergers can have a significant effect
on galaxy properties and may be an important part of galaxy evolution.
Enhanced star formation is one frequently observed property of (gas
rich) mergers and theoretical prescriptions for star formation can
generally reproduce the observed behavior. However a detailed study
comparison of these prescriptions with individual galaxy merger events
has not been undertaken. I will discuss ongoing progress to match
dynamical models to infrared luminous galaxy mergers using Identikit
and test-particle techniques. In the future these dynamical models
will be used to test theoretical star formation prescriptions.