A dynamical study of the frequency of merging galaxies

A study of the expected frequency of merging galaxies, involving disk-sphere systems, is conducted by use of the impulsive approximation. The results indicate that the expected frequencies of such galaxies is several orders of magnitude smaller than the observational value, if mergers taking place in a single crossing time or orbital period are considered. The expected frequency of elliptical pairs and spiral-elliptical pairs in merger is of the same order of magnitude, indicating that the two types of collisions are equally frequent. This aspect will be further investigated in subsequent papers of this series.     

A dynamical study of the frequency of merging galaxies

A study of the expected frequency of merging galaxies, for mergers taking place in several orbital periods, is conducted on the basis of the collisional theory of their formation, using galaxy models without halos. The results indicate that the expected frequency of such mergers is an order of magnitude below the observed value for the present epoch. The need for halos to hasten mergers is highlighted. In the light of current observational evidence and the results obtained, the formation of ellipticals by dissipative collapse followed by secular evolution by the mergers is favoured.     

A dynamical study of the frequency of ring galaxies

An investigation of the expected frequency of ring galaxies is conducted in the light of the theory of their formation by the collision process involving a disk and a spherical galaxy, using the impulsive approximation. It is found that very favourable collision parametrs (in terms of the impact parameter, orientation, and energy changes) are required for the formation of ring galaxies.Results indicate that if the expected frequency of fairly well-defined ring galaxies is measured with respect to regions of high density (in terms of population of galaxies) and using the average distance between galaxies corresponding to these regions for its determination, then it comes out to be of the order of 0.01% of spirals. An even higher frequency is obtained if we take the messy and ill-defined rings into account. The results obtained are quite compatible with the observational values.But, however, if we consider a region of normal density (where collisions are rare) for frequency determinations, the expected frequency goes down by few orders of magnitude. Thus stray-hyperbolic encounters are too scarce to explain the formation of ring galaxies. This indicates that most of these interacting pairs must have already been bound doubles, whose orbits are such as to have brought about only now the interpenetrating encounters leading to ring formation.     

The X-ray evolution of merging galaxies

We present here the first study of the X-ray properties of an evolutionary sample of merging galaxies. Both ROSAT PSPC and HRI data are presented for a sample of eight interacting galaxy systems, each believed to involve a similar encounter between two spiral discs of approximately equal size. The mergers span a large range in age, from completely detached to fully merged systems.
A great deal of interesting X-ray structure is seen, and the X-ray properties of each individual system are discussed in detail. Along the merging sequence, several trends are evident: in the case of several of the infrared bright systems, the diffuse emission is very extended, and appears to arise from material ejected from the galaxies. The onset of this process seems to occur very soon after the galaxies first encounter one another, and these ejections soon evolve into distorted flows. More massive extensions (perhaps involving up to 10¹⁰ M⊙ of hot gas) are seen at the 'ultraluminous' peak of the interaction, as the galactic nuclei coalesce.
The amplitude of the evolution of the X-ray emission through a merger is markedly different from that of the infrared and radio emission, however. Although the X-ray luminosity rises and falls along the sequence, the factor by which the X-ray luminosity increases, relative to the optical, appears to be only about a tenth of that seen in the far-infrared. This, we believe, may well be linked with the large extensions of hot gas observed.
The late, relaxed remnants appear relatively devoid of gas, and possess an X-ray halo very different from that of typical ellipticals, a problem for the 'merger hypothesis', whereby the merger of two disc galaxies results in an elliptical galaxy. However, these systems are still relatively young in terms of total merger lifetime, and they may still have a few Gyr of evolution to go through before they resemble typical elliptical galaxies.     

A dynamical interpretation of the Hubble sequence of galaxies

Brosche (1970) has proposed a theory in which the energy loss due to collisions among gas clouds contained in a galaxy constitutes the driving mechanism for its evolution, through virial equilibrium states which, from an initial spherical shape, makes it to contract towards an elongated form; moreover, the value of the total angular momentum, assumed as given by uniform rotation, is assumed to determine the galaxy type on the Hubble sequence and to strongly influence the contraction time from the initial spherical to the final flat configuration.We have modified Brosche's scheme by assuming as models the rotating polytropes of Chandrasekhar and Lebovitz with variable density from centre to border. As a consequence of this change, centrifugal shedding of matter is attained at the equator of the contracting ellipsoid for a configuration with an axial ratio different from zero, so that, hereafter, a flat disk is formed surrounding the internal bulge, with a decreasing overall eccentricity; the rotation curve assumes then an aspect qualitatively similar to the one observed for spiral galaxies.We have further considered the feedback of star formation which, by exhausting the material of the gas clouds, is able to stop the driving mechanism of evolution before the final flat stage is attained at several positions according to the value of the angular momentum.Numerical calculations seem to indicate that one can obtain in this way, by varying the angular momentum and the initial number of clouds, different galaxy types (elliptical, lenticular, spiral) resembling those of the Hubble sequence.     

Faint galaxies: merging model of E/SO galaxies

We study a model of mergers affecting only the progenitors of present E/SO. We adopt the standard scenarios of star formation as prescribed by Guiderdoni & Rocca-Volmerange. The merging process is parametrized under the assumptions of(1) self-similarity of the Schechter MF and(2) mass conservation. Nine models are discussed. The predictions are compared with counts ofB _J ,U ⁺,F ⁺,N ⁺ bands. E/SO mergers account for the excess of the faintest blue galaxies without causing excess in redder bands. However, as we no longer have enough mergers at brighter magnitudes, a plain E/SO merging model fits less tightly for the redshift and the colour distributions. Detection effect, a steeper slope of LF may be ways to improve. Our models predict acceptable merger frequencies atz = 0.5 although some models predict more interacting galaxies than observation atz = 0.     

Hydrodynamic simulations of merging clusters of galaxies

We present the results of high-resolution AP³M+SPH simulations of merging clusters of galaxies. We find that the compression and shocking of the core gas during a merger can lead to large increases in bolometric X-ray luminosities and emission-weighted temperatures of clusters. Cooling flows are completely disrupted during equal-mass mergers, with the mass deposition rate dropping to zero as the cores of the clusters collide. The large increase in the cooling time of the core gas strongly suggests that cooling flows will not recover from such a merger within a Hubble time. Mergers with subclumps having one eighth of the mass of the main cluster are also found to disrupt a cooling flow if the merger is head-on. However, in this case the entropy injected into the core gas is rapidly radiated away and the cooling flow restarts within a few Gyr of the merger. Mergers in which the subcluster has an impact parameter of 500 kpc do not disrupt the cooling flow, although the mass deposition rate is reduced by ∼30 per cent. Finally, we find that equal mass, off-centre mergers can effectively mix gas in the cores of clusters, while head on mergers lead to very little mixing. Gas stripped from the outer layers of subclumps results in parts of the outer layers of the main cluster being well mixed, although they have little effect on the gas in the core of the cluster. None of the mergers examined here resulted in the intracluster medium being well mixed globally.     

Formation of gas discs in merging galaxies

Observations indicate that much of the interstellar gas in merging galaxies may settle into extended gaseous discs. Here, I present simulations of disc formation in mergers of gas-rich galaxies. Up to half of the total gas settles into embedded discs; the most massive instances result from encounters in which both galaxies are inclined to the orbital plane. These discs are often warped, many have rather complex kinematics, and roughly a quarter have counter-rotating or otherwise decoupled central components. Discs typically grow from the inside out; infall from tidal tails may continue disc formation over long periods of time.     

A dynamical model for the extraplanar gas in spiral galaxies

Recent H  i observations reveal that the discs of spiral galaxies are surrounded by extended gaseous haloes. This extraplanar gas reaches large distances (several kiloparsecs) from the disc and shows peculiar kinematics (low rotation and inflow). We have modelled the extraplanar gas as a continuous flow of material from the disc of a spiral galaxy into its halo region. The output of our models is pseudo data cubes that can be directly compared to the H  i data. We have applied these models to two spiral galaxies (NGC 891 and NGC 2403) known to have a substantial amount of extraplanar gas. Our models are able to reproduce accurately the vertical distribution of extraplanar gas for an energy input corresponding to a small fraction (<4 per cent) of the energy released by supernovae. However, they fail in two important aspects: (1) they do not reproduce the right gradient in rotation velocity; (2) they predict a general outflow of the extraplanar gas, contrary to what is observed. We show that neither of these difficulties can be removed if clouds are ionized and invisible at 21 cm as they leave the disc but become visible at some point on their orbits. We speculate that these failures indicate the need for accreted material from the intergalactic medium that could provide the low angular momentum and inflow required.     

On dynamical models for radio galaxies

The tailed radio galaxies that have been called ‘Type I’ are not a uniform set. To study their dynamics, we have used the Ledlow–Owen data set, which provides a new sample of 250 radio galaxies in nearby Abell clusters. These sources divide into two clear categories based on their radio morphology. Type A sources (‘straight’) contain nearly straight jets which are embedded in outer radio lobe. Type B sources (‘tailed’) have a well-collimated jet flow which undergoes a sudden transition, at an inner hot spot, to a less collimated flow which continues on and forms a radio tail. We have not found any separation of these classes in terms of radio power, radio flux size, galaxy power or external gas density. We propose the difference is due to the development, or not, of a disruptive flow instability, such as Kelvin–Helmholtz, and the saturation of the instability when it develops.     

Chemical and dynamical evolution of spiral galaxies

We present the very first results of a new 3D numerical model for the formation and evolution of spiral galaxies along the Hubble sequence. We take into account the hydrodynamical properties of the gas with an SPH method while we use a tree code for the gravitational forces of the dark matter and stars. The chemical evolution is also fully included, with both SNe Ia and SNe II explosions being followed, and this will allows us to predict abundances of various chemical species, abundance ratios and their radial distributions. This revised version was published online in September 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Chemical and dynamical evolution of spiral galaxies

We investigate the consequences of the hypothesis of the secular evolution (growth of the bulge from disc material via a bar and temporal evolution of the Hubble sequence) on the chemical evolution of a galaxy. We present the first dynamical and chemical results of our 3D tree-SPH simulations. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The dynamical structure of dwarf elliptical galaxies

Deep imaging and long-slit spectroscopy was obtained for a sample of dwarf ellipticals in the Fornax cluster, NGC 5044 and NGC 5898 groups using the ESO VLT. The observational data extend out to typically 1.5–2 effective radii and indicate a kinematic dichotomy in the family of ellipticals. The observed stellar kinematics indicate a luminosity–velocity dispersion relation largely supporting Supernova-driven stellar mass loss scenarios for the formation of dwarf ellipticals. Stellar dynamical models favour dark matter halos with typical mass-to-light ratios in the range of 3 to 9 solar units. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Evolutionary synthesis modelling of young star clusters in merging galaxies

The observational properties of globular cluster systems (GCSs) are vital tools to investigate the violent star formation histories of their host galaxies. This violence is thought to have been triggered by galaxy interactions or mergers. The most basic properties of a GCS are its luminosity function (number of clusters per luminosity bin) and color distributions. A large number of observed GCS show bimodal color distributions, which can be translated into a bimodality in either metallicity and/or age. An additional uncertainty comes into play when one considers extinction. These effects can be disentangled either by obtaining spectroscopic data for the clusters or by imaging observations in at least four passbands. This allows us then to discriminate between various formation scenarios of GCSs, e.g. the merger scenario by Ashman and Zepf, and the multi-phase collapse model by Forbes et al. Young and metal-rich star cluster populations are seen to form in interacting and merging galaxies. We analyse multiwavelength broad-band observations of these young cluster systems provided by the ASTROVIRTEL project. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Orbital characteristics of dynamical models of elliptical galaxies

We use three different dynamical models for describing the motion in the meridian plane of an elliptical galaxy. Orbital characteristics of two polynomial models are compared with those given by a logarithmic potential for a fixed axial ratio of the equipotential surfaces, We also study the effects of an asymmetric perturbation caused by a companion galaxy on the orbital behaviour of the above models. Finally we present some theoretical arguments in order to support the numerical results.     

Determination of the dynamical structure of galaxies using optical spectra

Galaxy spectra are a rich source of kinematical information since the shapes of the absorption lines reflect the movement of stars along the line-of-sight. We present a technique with which to build directly a dynamical model for a galaxy by fitting model spectra, calculated from a dynamical model, to the observed galaxy spectra. Using synthetic spectra from a known galaxy model we demonstrate that this technique indeed recovers the essential dynamical characteristics of the galaxy model. Moreover, the method allows a statistically meaningful error analysis on the resulting dynamical quantities.     

Classes of ring galaxies generated by dynamical friction

Dynamical friction is incorporated in the numerical modeling of colliding ring galaxies. We show that dynamical friction may lead to the capture of an initially unbound companion into a damped oscillatory orbit before ultimately merging with the target disk. In the late stages of its motion the companion may be virtually merged with the main galaxy while rings are still propagating in the disk. This raises the possibility that there exist (at least) two classes of ring galaxies: a class of ring galaxies with separate detached companions in which dynamical friction is too weak to have captured the collider, and a second class with no apparent companion in which the latter has either merged with the target galaxy or has disrupted. These two classes could possibly be identified with O-type and P-type ring galaxies of Few and Madore (1986).