Title: THE ROLE OF SHOCKS IN THE EMISSION OF THE SINGLY IONIZED CARBON  IN GALAXIES

SUMMARY:

The fine structure [CII] line at 157.7um is considered a good tracer of star formation because it is unaffected by dust attenuation and it is bright enough to be detected in high-z galaxies. This happens because the singly ionized carbon C+ collisionally excited by the surrounding neutral atomic and molecular hydrogen acts as the main coolant for the molecular clouds heated by young bright stars in galaxies. In this talk I will present a few cases of nearby galaxies where shocks are instead the reason for the [CII] emission. In particular I will talk about galaxies where jets from the central AGN affect the interstellar medium at great distance from the nucleus and about a few other cases where shocks from galaxy interactions are at the origin of a [CII] emission excess.