Evolution of Starburst Galaxies in the Illustris Simulation
  There is a consensus in the literature that starburst galaxies are triggered
by inter- action events. However, it remains an open question as to what extent
both merging and non-merging interactions have in triggering starbursts? In
this study, we make use of the Illustris simulation to test how different
triggering mechanisms can effect starburst events. We examine star formation
rate, colour and environment of starburst galaxies to determine if this could
be why we witness a bimodality in post-starburst populations within
observational studies. Further, we briefly test the extent of quenching due to
AGN feedback. From Illustris, we select 196 starburst galaxies at z = 0.15 and
split them into post-merger and pre-merger/harassment driven starburst samples.
We find that 55% of this sample not undergone a merger in the past 2 Gyr. Both
of our samples are located in low-density environments within the filament
regions of the cosmic web, however we find that pre-merger/harassment driven
starburst are in higher density environments than post-merger driven
starbursts. We also find that pre-merger/harassment starbursts are redder than
post-merger starbursts, this could be driven by environmental effects. Both
however, produce nuclear starbursts of comparable strengths.
