Collisional debris as laboratories to study star formation
  In this paper we address the question whether star formation is driven by
local processes or the large scale environment. To do so, we investigate star
formation in collisional debris where the gravitational potential well and
velocity gradients are shallower and compare our results with previous work on
star formation in non-interacting spiral and dwarf galaxies. We have performed
multiwavelength spectroscopic and imaging observations (from the
far-ultraviolet to the mid-infrared) of 6 interacting systems, identifying a
total of 60 star-forming regions in their collision debris.
  Our analysis indicates that in these regions a) the emission of the dust is
at the expected level for their luminosity and metallicity, b) the usual
tracers of star formation rate display the typical trend and scatter found in
classical star forming regions, and c) the extinction and metallicity are not
the main parameters governing the scatter in the properties of intergalactic
star forming regions; age effects and variations in the number of stellar
populations, seem to play an important role. Our work suggests that local
properties such as column density and dust content, rather than the large scale
environment seem to drive star formation. This means that intergalactic star
forming regions can be used as a reliable tool to study star formation.
