On the Interpretation of the l-v Features in the Milky Way Galaxy

We model the gas dynamics of barred galaxies using a three-dimensional, high-resolution, $N$-body+hydrodynamical simulation and apply it to the Milky Way in an attempt to reproduce both the large-scale structure and the clumpy morphology observed in Galactic H\emissiontype{I} and CO $l-v$ diagrams. Owing to including the multi-phase interstellar medium, self-gravity, star-formation and supernovae feedback, the clumpy morphology, as well as the large-scale features, in observed $l-v$ diagrams are naturally reproduced. We identify in our $l-v$ diagrams with a number of not only large-scale peculiar features such as the '3-kpc arm', '135-km s$^{-1}$ arm' and 'Connecting arm' but also clumpy features such as `Bania clumps', and then link these features in a face-on view of our model. We give suggestions on the real structure of the Milky Way and on the fate of gas clumps in the central region.Comment: accepted to PAS

Galactic Rotation from Cepheids with Gaia DR2 and Effects of Non-Axisymmetry

We apply a simple axisymmetric disc model to 218 Galactic Cepheids whose accurate measurements of the distance and velocities are obtained by cross-matching an existing Cepheids catalogue with the Gaia DR2 data. Our model fit determines the "local centrifugal speed", $V_\mathrm{c}$ $-$ defined as the rotation speed required to balance the local radial gravitational force $-$ at the Sun's location to be $V_{c}(R_0)=236\pm 3$ km s$^{-1}$ and the Sun's azimuthal and radial peculiar motions to be $V_{\odot}=12.4\pm0.7$ km s$^{-1}$ and $U_{\odot}=7.7\pm0.9$ km s$^{-1}$, respectively. These results are obtained with strong priors on the solar radius, $R_0=8.2\pm0.1$ kpc, and Sun's angular rotation velocity, $\Omega_{\odot}=30.24\pm0.12$ km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$. We also applied the axisymmetric model to mock data from an N-body/hydrodynamic simulation of a Milky Way-like galaxy with a bar and spiral arms. We find that our axisymmetric model fit to the young stars recovers the local centrifugal speed reasonably well, even in the face of significant non-axisymmetry. However, the local centrifugal speed determined from our Cepheid sample could suffer from systematic uncertainty as large as 6 km s$^{-1}$.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA