Properties of star formation in the spiral arms of barred galaxies

It is assumed that the two-fold disc-wide symmetry of spirals is caused by density waves, but also the potential of a bar component may have a significant influence on structural properties. The strength of the bar component appears to be anti-correlated with the degree of symmetry of star-forming regions in the spiral arms (Rozas et al., 1998). We present new results of R and Hα surface photometry of a sample of bright barred spirals. A photometric decompositon of the galaxy components is carried out in order to make a more accurate measurement of the strength of the bar and its interrelation to gas and stars in the disc. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Bars and the symmetry of star formation patterns in the discs of spiral galaxies

We present a test for the degree of symmetry in the distribution of the Hα brightness along the arms of a sample of spiral galaxies. The test consists of deriving the cross-correlation function of the Hα brightness as a function of curvilinear distance along pairs of opposed arms, after unfolding the arms geometrically. Our results reveal a significantly greater degree of symmetry in the non-barred population than in the barred. We derive parameters for both bar strength and bar ellipticity, and compare these with the derived cross-correlations to strengthen this conclusion. We suggest that density waves are a probable cause for the appearance of global, i.e. disc-wide, two-fold symmetry in spiral discs. Comparison with published work on abundance gradients in the discs of barred and non-barred galaxies indicates that, as for the abundances, mixing in the spiral disc as a result of the bar potential may well be responsible for our observation that stronger bars are related to reduced two-fold symmetry in the distribution of star-forming regions along the spiral arms.     

Maintenance of spiral arms and galactic magnetic field configurations

Of the various proposed mechanisms to maintain spiral arms in spiral galaxies, three have been supported by observations, statistics, or theories (bar, companion, extended solid-body rotation curve). It is shown here that in the presence of a central bar or oval distirtion to maintain spiral arms, the global magnetic field lines also follow the spiral shape of the arms. Excluding then barred galaxies, it is confirmed that in the presence of a companion galaxy to maintain spiral arms, the global magnetic lines in a spiral galaxy will either follow thespiral shape of the arms (when tides are larger), or else will follow thering shape of the orbit of matter crossing spiral arms (when tides are small). In the presence of an extended solid-body rotation curve to maintain spiral arms within the solid-body rotation region, the global magnetic field lines also follow the spiral shape of the arms.The results above do not favour the hypothesis that a weak intergalactic magnetic field could have been amplified enough by gravitational contraction of a protogalaxy to give rise to the observed strength of galactic magnetic fields. On the contrary, leakage of galactic magnetic fields into intergalactic/cosmological space is expected.     

Orbital structure in N-body models of barred-spiral galaxies

We study the orbital structure in a series of self-consistent N -body configurations simulating rotating barred galaxies with spiral and ring structures. We perform frequency analysis in order to measure the angular and the radial frequencies of the orbits at two different time snapshots during the evolution of each N -body system. The analysis is done separately for the regular and the chaotic orbits. We thereby identify the various types of orbits, determine the shape and percentages of the orbits supporting the bar and the ring/spiral structures, and study how the latter quantities change during the secular evolution of each system. Although the frequency maps of the chaotic orbits are scattered, we can still identify concentrations around resonances. We give the distributions of frequencies of the most important populations of orbits. We explore the phase-space structure of each system using projections of the 4D surfaces of section. These are obtained via the numerical integration not only of the orbits of test particles, but also of the real N -body particles. We thus identify which domains of the phase space are preferred and which are avoided by the real particles. The chaotic orbits are found to play a major role in supporting the shape of the outer envelope of the bar as well as the rings and the spiral arms formed outside corotation.     

Kinematics and Mass Modelling of NGC 1068

We present the kinematics of the ionized gas over the inner 140″ (10 kpc) from observations with the HIFI Fabry-Perot interferometer. There is clear evidence for density wave streaming and bar-driven streaming across the field, with bi-symmetric arms that penetrate to within 200 pc of the nucleus. CO maps show linear structures along (although slightly offset from) the bar consistent with a strong shock. Along the spiral arms which encircle the bar, the H II regions lie downstream of the CO gas in the rest frame of the bar, as do the dust lanes, only if the gas outruns the stellar bar. As a first step towards understanding the details of the gas kinematics, and attempting to determine the mass inflow rate towards the nucleus, we build a mass model for the central disk constrained by near-infrared images. We plan to use this model as gravitational background potential for hydrodynamical simulations of the gas response to the bar. Comparing these with the data presented should enable us to constrain various quantities such as pattern speed, stellar mass-to-light ratio, central mass concentration, and gas fueling rate. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

旋涡星系中旋臂的维持

为了避开旧物质臂理论中旋臂的缠绕困难，本文提出了旋涡星系的循环假设，并在文中提供了旋涡星系的双臂、气体层反卷、银河系中旋臂物质径向向内的速度分量和棒旋星系中棒物质沿着棒向内的流动等观测证据，进而还尝试利用此循环假设去解释旋臂物质的平自转曲线和棒旋星系的棒结构等的成因。     

Stellar and gas dynamics of late-type barred-spiral galaxies: NGC 3359, a test case

We study the dynamics of a model for the late-type barred-spiral galaxy NGC 3359 by using both observational and numerical techniques. The results of our modelling are compared with photometric and kinematical data. The potential used is estimated directly from observations of the galaxy. It describes with a single potential function, a barred-spiral system with an extended spiral structure. Thus, the study of the dynamics in this potential has an interest by itself. We apply orbital theory and response models for the study of the stellar component, and smoothed particle hydrodynamics for modelling the gas. In particular, we examine the pattern speed of the system and the orbital character (chaotic or ordered) of the spiral arms. We conclude that the spiral pattern rotates slowly, in the sense that its corotation is close to or even beyond the end of the arms. Although a single, slow pattern speed could, under certain assumptions, characterize the whole disc, the comparison with the observational data indicates that probably the bar and the spirals have different angular velocities. In our two pattern speeds model, the best fit is obtained with a bar ending close to its 4:1 resonance and a more slowly rotating spiral. Assuming an 11 Mpc distance to the galaxy, a match of our models with the observed data indicates a pattern speed of about  39 km s⁻¹ kpc⁻¹  for the bar and about  15 km s⁻¹ kpc⁻¹  for the spiral. We do not find any indication for a chaotic character of the arms in this barred-spiral system. The flow in the region of the spirals can best be described as a regular 'precessing-ellipses flow'.     

Methods and Results of an Optical Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations

I summarize fully-sampled observations of the 3 mm emission from CO and HCN in the inner arcminute of NGC 1068. The CO emission is distributed in the form of a molecular bar, coincident with the infrared bar, from which emanate two spiral arms. A relatively weak concentration of CO line emission is found at the nucleus. By contrast, the HCN emission is strongly concentrated at the center, with relatively weak emission in the region of the star-forming arms. The ratio of HCN to CO integrated intensities is about 0.6 over the central r ≉ 175 pc and is the highest ratio measured in the center of any galaxy; the ratio reflects the high thermal pressure (TK ~ 50 K, n[H2] ~ 4 × 106 cm-3) in the few hundred parsecs surrounding the nucleus. The kinematics in the star-forming arms are well described by circular orbits, with ordered noncircular motions of < 30 km s-1 that may be attributed to spiral density wave streaming. Interior to the bar, noncircular motions dominate the gas kinematics. A model of the CO kinematics contrains any Inner Lindblad Resonance to be close to the location of the hundred-parsec scale HCN ‘disk’. At the nucleus, the spatially unresolved CO emission shows a triplet velocity structure characteristic of kinematically independent regions. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Non-stationary motion of a rotating infinitely flattened self-gravitating system near an equilibrium state

An example of a rotating infinitely flattened self-gravitating particle system in steady state is considered. Non-stationary motion of the system in the neighborhood of this equilibrium solution is determined through the sencond-order perturbation. The first order perturbation terms give rise to a configuration of straight bars emanating from the center which become skewed under the influence of the second-order terms. In the case of a single bar, as in a barred spiral, the skewing is in the arms leading or arms trailing sense, according to whether the system is developing away from or approaching the equilibrium state.     

Outer pseudoring in the galaxy

The kinematics of the Sagittarius (R = 5.7 kpc),Carina (R = 6.5 kpc), Cygnus (R = 6.8 kpc), and Perseus (R = 8.2 kpc) arms suggests the existence of two spiral patterns in the Galaxy that rotate with different speeds. The inner spiral pattern that is represented by the Sagittarius arm rotates with the speed of the bar, Ω_b = 60 ± 5 km s⁻¹ kpc⁻¹, while the outer spiral pattern that includes the Carina, Cygnus, and Perseus arms rotates with a lower speed, Ω_s = 12–22 km s⁻¹ kpc⁻¹.The existence of an outer slow tightly wound spiral pattern and an inner fast spiral pattern can be explained by numerically simulating the dynamics of outer pseudorings. The outer Lindblad resonance of the bar must be located between the Sagittarius and Carina arms. The Cygnus arm appears as a connecting link between the fast and slow spiral patterns.     

A new model for barred spiral galaxies

Computer simulations are used to demonstrate that normal spiral galaxies with symmetrically warped arms can appear to have bar and bar-within-ring structures when viewed from appropriate position angles.     

A new formula describing the scaffold structure of spiral galaxies

We describe a new formula capable of quantitatively characterizing the Hubble sequence of spiral galaxies including grand design and barred spirals. Special shapes such as ring galaxies with inward and outward arms are also described by the analytic continuation of the same formula. The formula is   r (φ) = A /log [ B tan   (φ/2 N )]  . This function intrinsically generates a bar in a continuous, fixed relationship relative to an arm of arbitrary winding sweep. A is simply a scale parameter while B , together with N , determines the spiral pitch. Roughly, greater N results in tighter winding. Greater B results in greater arm sweep and smaller bar/bulge, while smaller B fits larger bar/bulge with a sharper bar/arm junction. Thus B controls the 'bar/bulge-to-arm' size, while N controls the tightness much like the Hubble scheme. The formula can be recast in a form dependent only on a unique point of turnover angle of pitch – essentially a one-parameter fit, aside from a scalefactor. The recast formula is remarkable and unique in that a single parameter can define a spiral shape with either constant or variable pitch capable of tightly fitting Hubble types from grand design spirals to late-type large barred galaxies. We compare the correlation of our pitch parameter to Hubble type with that of the traditional logarithmic spiral for 21 well-shaped galaxies. The pitch parameter of our formula produces a very tight correlation with ideal Hubble type suggesting it is a good discriminator compared to logarithmic pitch, which shows poor correlation here similar to previous works. Representative examples of fitted galaxies are shown.     

Formation of giant low surface brightness galaxies through disc instability

It is shown that the giant low surface brightness galaxies (GLSBs), characterized by a large but diffuse disc component, can result from ordinary spiral galaxies through dynamical evolution. Numerical simulations indicate that the formation of a bar in a gravitationally unstable disc with high surface density induces non-circular motions and radial mixing of disc matter, leading to the flattening of the disc density profile. The resulting decrease in the disc central surface brightness is ∼1.5 magnitude, while the disc scalelength is nearly doubled, transforming a typical high surface brightness galaxy to a GSLB. This scenario seems promising especially for the GSLBs possessing a significant bulge, which are difficult to incorporate into the traditional Hubble sequence. Namely, because this disc transmutation can operate even if a moderate bulge component exists, the GSLBs with a bulge are argued to have resulted from the high surface brightness galaxies which had already possessed a bulge. The current picture naturally explains other observed characteristics of the GSLBs as well, including the propensity for having grand-design spiral arms and a bar, a high incidence of active nuclei, and galaxy environments.     

Simulations of slow bars in anisotropic disk systems

The instability of anisotropic disk systems with elongated stellar orbits has been investigated. N-body generalized polytropic models of stellar disks have been constructed. They are shown to be unstable with respect to the bar formation at any degree of anisotropy. This result differs from the results of the studies of such models by other authors. The bar pattern speed and amplitude have been found. The initial distribution of precession rates and the adiabatic invariants of stellar orbits have been calculated. A bar is shown to be formed in such systems due to the radial orbit instability.     

Hercules and Wolf 630 stellar streams and galactic bar kinematics

We have identified the four most significant features in the UV velocity distribution of solarneighborhood stars: H1, H2 in the Hercules stream and W1, W2 in the Wolf 630 stream. We have formulated the problemof determining several characteristics of the centralGalactic bar independently from each of the identified features by assuming that the Hercules and Wolf 630 streams are of a bar-induced dynamical nature. The problem has been solved by constructing 2: 1 resonant orbits in the rotating bar frame for each star in these streams. Analysis of the resonant orbits found has shown that the bar pattern speed is 45–55 km s^?1 kpc^?1, while the bar angle lies within the range 40°?60°. The results obtained are consistent with the view that the Hercules andWolf 630 streams could be formed by a long-term influence of the Galactic bar leading to a characteristic bimodal splitting of the UV velocity plane.     

Order and chaos in spiral galaxies

Spiral galaxies contain both ordered and chaotic orbits. In normal spirals the perturbations are weak (of order 2–10%) and most orbits are ordered. The density wave theory refers mainly to linear perturbations. Nonlinear effects appear in the outer parts of the open spirals (S_b, S_c) and produce the termination of these spirals near the 4/1 resonance. On the other hand in barred spirals the perturbations are relatively strong (of order 100%). Then the outer spirals and the envelope of the bar are composed mainly of chaotic orbits, while the main body of the bar is composed of ordered orbits. The chaotic orbits of the spiral arms of strong barred galaxies are sticky, i.e. they do not escape from the galaxy for at least a Hubble time. The forms of these spirals are delineated by the unstable manifolds of the unstable periodic orbits L_1, L_2 near the ends of the bar and of other unstable periodic orbits inside and outside corotation.     

Morphology, photometry and kinematics of N-body bars – I. Three models with different halo central concentrations

We discuss the morphology, photometry and kinematics of the bars which have formed in three N -body simulations. These have initially the same disc and the same halo-to-disc mass ratio, but their haloes have very different central concentrations. The third model includes a bulge. The bar in the model with the centrally concentrated halo (model MH) is much stronger, longer and thinner than the bar in the model with the less centrally concentrated halo (model MD). Its shape, when viewed side-on, evolves from boxy to peanut and then to 'X'-shaped, as opposed to that of model MD, which stays boxy. The projected density profiles obtained from cuts along the bar major axis, for both the face-on and the edge-on views, show a flat part, as opposed to those of model MD which are falling rapidly. A Fourier analysis of the face-on density distribution of model MH shows very large  m=2  , 4, 6 and 8 components. Contrary to this, for model MD the components  m=6  and 8 are negligible. The velocity field of model MH shows strong deviations from axial symmetry, and in particular has wavy isovelocities near the end of the bar when viewed along the bar minor axis. When viewed edge-on, it shows cylindrical rotation, which the MD model does not. The properties of the bar of the model with a bulge and a non-centrally concentrated halo (MDB) are intermediate between those of the bars of the other two models. All three models exhibit a lot of inflow of the disc material during their evolution, so that by the end of the simulations the disc dominates over the halo in the inner parts, even for model MH, for which the halo and disc contributions were initially comparable in that region.     

Investigation of the Galactic bar based on photometry and stellar proper motions

A new method for selecting stars in the Galactic bar based on 2MASS infrared photometry in combination with stellar proper motions from the Kharkiv XPM catalogue has been implemented. In accordance with this method, red clump and red giant branch stars are preselected on the color-magnitude diagram and their photometric distances are calculated. Since the stellar proper motions are indicators of a larger velocity dispersion toward the bar and the spiral arms compared to the stars with circular orbits, applying the constraints on the proper motions of the preselected stars that take into account the Galactic rotation has allowed the background stars to be eliminated. Based on a joint analysis of the velocities of the selected stars and their distribution on the Galactic plane, we have confidently identified the segment of the Galactic bar nearest to the Sun with an orientation of 20°–25° with respect to the Galactic center-Sun direction and a semimajor axis of no more than 3 kpc.     

The coalescence of invariant manifolds and the spiral structure of barred galaxies

In a previous paper (Voglis et al., Paper I), we demonstrated that, in a rotating galaxy with a strong bar, the unstable asymptotic manifolds of the short-period family of unstable periodic orbits around the Lagrangian points L ₁ or L ₂ create correlations among the apocentric positions of many chaotic orbits, thus supporting a spiral structure beyond the bar. In this paper, we present evidence that the unstable manifolds of all the families of unstable periodic orbits near and beyond corotation contribute to the same phenomenon. Our results refer to a N -body simulation, a number of drawbacks of which, as well as the reasons why these do not significantly affect the main results, are discussed. We explain the dynamical importance of the invariant manifolds as due to the fact that they produce a phenomenon of 'stickiness' slowing down the rate of chaotic escape in an otherwise non-compact region of the phase space. We find a stickiness time of the order of 100 dynamical periods, which is sufficient to support a long-living spiral structure. Manifolds of different families become important at different ranges of values of the Jacobi constant. The projections of the manifolds of all the different families in the configuration space produce a pattern due to the 'coalescence' of the invariant manifolds. This follows closely the maxima of the observed   m = 2  component near and beyond corotation. Thus, the manifolds support both the outer edge of the bar and the spiral arms.     

Does Deuterium Enable the Formation of Primordial Brown Dwarfs?

The time evolution of barred structures is examined under the influence of the external forces exerted by a spherical halo and by prolate halos. In particular, galaxy disks are placed in the plane including the major axis of prolate halos, whose configuration is often found in cosmological simulations. N-body disks in fixed external halo fields are simulated, so that bars are formed via dynamical instability. In the subsequent evolution, the bars in prolate halos dissolve gradually with time, while the bar pattern in a spherical halo remains almost unchanged to the end of the simulation. The decay times of the bars suggest that they can be destroyed in a time smaller than a Hubble time. Our results indicate that this dissolution process could occur in real barred galaxies, if they are surrounded by massive dark prolate halos, and the configuration adopted here is not unusual from the viewpoint of galaxy formation. For a prolate halo model, an additional simulation that is restricted to two-dimensional in-plane motions has also ended up with similar bar dissolution. This means that the vertical motions of disk stars do not play an essential role in the bar dissolution demonstrated here.