In the Local Volume TiNy Titans (LV-TNT) sample, we study resolved synthesis maps of neutral hydrogen for 10 dwarf galaxy pairs. The pairs represent a diverse sample of dwarf galaxy interactions, as they are located at different distances from massive galaxies and are captured in various interaction stages. The diversity of the sample enables us to ask: what is more important - environment or dwarf-dwarf interactions in removing gas to large radii? How much material can be removed in this way and does this material remain bound to the pairs?
We found that tidal interactions between dwarf galaxies could "park" gas at large distances, but that this gas would be re-accreted to the dwarfs (the gas remained bound) unless the pair was in the vicinity of a massive galaxy, which prevented the re-accretion. The results of the study were published in Pearson et al. 2016 and the paper was featured as an Inside Science article: Interacting Dwarf Galaxies Shed Light On Milky Way Neighbors.
HI contours (blue) of all LV-TNT pairs, with the 2MASS ellipses in (red) and beam sizes (green).
Example of LV-TNT pair: NGC 4490/4485, ~ 8 Mpc away, rsep ~10 kpc; SDSS image.