From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere: Star Formation & Galaxy Evolution in Compact Groups of Galaxies
Compact groups of galaxies provide an important laboratory for studying the formation and evolution of galaxies. In particular, these woefully under-studied groups can provide important insight into the "gastrophysics" that takes place amid continuous gravitational encounters and mergers of galaxies, similar to the conditions that were common in the earlier universe. While our current understanding of compact groups is quite poor, we have now begun a large-scale multi-wavelength observing campaign. In this talk I will overview recent results from this project, highlighting intriguing results from the Spitzer Space Telescope. In particular, our observations indicate a "gap" in the distribution of galaxies in infrared color space that is not present in comparison data from other samples. We interpret this gap as reflecting an important dynamical process specific to the compact group environment that dramatically impacts the ISM in the constituent galaxies. These processes are an integral part of galaxy formation and evolution through the hierarchical merging process.