495 research outputs found
The Destruction of Bars by Central Mass Concentrations
More than two thirds of disk galaxies are barred to some degree. Many today
harbor massive concentrations of gas in their centers, and some are known to
possess supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their associated stellar cusps.
Previous theoretical work has suggested that a bar in a galaxy could be
dissolved by the formation of a mass concentration in the center, although the
precise mass and degree of central concentration required is not
well-established. We report an extensive study of the effects of central masses
on bars in high-quality N-body simulations of galaxies. We have varied the
growth rate of the central mass, its final mass and degree of concentration to
examine how these factors affect the evolution of the bar. Our main conclusions
are: (1) Bars are more robust than previously thought. The central mass has to
be as large as several percent of the disk mass to completely destroy the bar
on a short timescale. (2) For a given mass, dense objects cause the greatest
reduction in bar amplitude, while significantly more diffuse objects have a
lesser effect. (3) The bar amplitude always decreases as the central mass is
grown, and continues to decay thereafter on a cosmological time-scale. (4) The
first phase of bar-weakening is due to the destruction by the CMC of
lower-energy, bar-supporting orbits, while the second phase is a consequence of
secular changes to the global potential which further diminish the number of
bar-supporting orbits. We provide detailed phase-space and orbit analysis to
support this suggestion. Thus current masses of SMBHs are probably too small,
even when dressed with a stellar cusp, to affect the bar in their host
galaxies. The molecular gas concentrations found in some barred galaxies are
also too diffuse to affect the amplitude of the bar significantly.Comment: AASTeX v5.0 preprint; 44 pages, including 1 table and 16 figures. To
appear in ApJ. High resolution version can be found at
http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~shen/bar_destruct/paper_high_res.pd
Dynamical Friction and the Distribution of Dark Matter in Barred Galaxies
We use fully self-consistent N-body simulations of barred galaxies to show
that dynamical friction from a dense dark matter halo dramatically slows the
rotation rate of bars. Our result supports previous theoretical predictions for
a bar rotating within a massive halo. On the other hand, low density halos,
such as those required for maximum disks, allow the bar to continue to rotate
at a high rate. There is somewhat meager observational evidence indicating that
bars in real galaxies do rotate rapidly and we use our result to argue that
dark matter halos must have a low central density in all high surface
brightness disk galaxies, including the Milky Way. Bars in galaxies that have
larger fractions of dark matter should rotate slowly, and we suggest that a
promising place to look for such candidate objects is among galaxies of
intermediate surface brightness.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, 3 figures, Accepted by Ap.J.L., revised copy,
includes an added paragrap
Bar-Halo Friction in Galaxies II: Metastability
It is well-established that strong bars rotating in dense halos generally
slow down as they lose angular momentum to the halo through dynamical friction.
Angular momentum exchanges between the bar and halo particles take place at
resonances. While some particles gain and others lose, friction arises when
there is an excess of gainers over losers. This imbalance results from the
generally decreasing numbers of particles with increasing angular momentum, and
friction can therefore be avoided if there is no gradient in the density of
particles across the major resonances. Here we show that anomalously weak
friction can occur for this reason if the pattern speed of the bar fluctuates
upwards. After such an event, the density of resonant halo particles has a
local inflexion created by the earlier exchanges, and bar slowdown can be
delayed for a long period; we describe this as a metastable state. We show that
this behavior in purely collisionless N-body simulations is far more likely to
occur in methods with adaptive resolution. We also show that the phenomenon
could arise in nature, since bar-driven gas inflow could easily raise the bar
pattern speed enough to reach the metastable state. Finally, we demonstrate
that mild external, or internal, perturbations quickly restore the usual
frictional drag, and it is unlikely therefore that a strong bar in a galaxy
having a dense halo could rotate for a long period without friction.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Ap
Stability of disk galaxies in the modified dynamics
General analytic arguments lead us to expect that in the modified dynamics
(MOND) self-gravitating disks are more stable than their like in Newtonian
dynamics. We study this question numerically, using a particle-mesh code based
on a multi-grid solver for the (nonlinear) MOND field equation. We start with
equilibrium distribution functions for MOND disk models having a smoothly
truncated, exponential surface-density profiles and a constant Toomre
parameter. We find that, indeed, disks of a given ``temperature'' are locally
more stable in MOND than in Newtonian dynamics. As regards global instability
to bar formation, we find that as the mean acceleration in the disk is lowered,
the stability of the disk is increased as we cross from the Newtonian to the
MOND regime. The degree of stability levels off deep in the MOND regime, as
expected from scaling laws in MOND. For the disk model we use, this maximum
degree of stability is similar to the one imparted to a Newtonian disk by a
halo three times as massive at five disk scale lengths.Comment: 20 pages, Latex, 8 embedded figures, version to be published in The
Astrophys.
Structure of the Draco Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
This article studies the structure of the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy with
an emphasis on the question of whether the spatial distribution of its stars
has been affected by the tidal interaction with the Milky Way, using R- and
V-band CCD photometry for eleven fields. The article reports coordinates for
the center, a position angle of the major axis, and the ellipticity. It also
reports the results of searches for asymmetries in the structure of Draco.
These results, and searches for a ``break'' in the radial profile and for the
presence of principal sequences of Draco in a color-magnitude diagram for
regions more than 50 arcmin from the center, yield no evidence that tidal
forces from the Milky Way have affected the structure of Draco.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in A
EXCITATION of COUPLED STELLAR MOTIONS in the GALACTIC DISK by ORBITING SATELLITES
We use a set of high-resolution N-body simulations of the Galactic disk to study its interactions with the population of cosmologically predicted satellites. One simulation illustrates that multiple passages of massive satellites with different velocities through the disk generate a wobble, which has the appearance of rings in face-on projections of the stellar disk. They also produce flares in the outer disk parts and gradually heat the disk through bending waves. A different numerical experiment shows that an individual satellite as massive as the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy passing through the disk will drive coupled horizontal and vertical oscillations of stars in underdense regions with small associated heating. This experiment shows that vertical excursions of stars in these low-density regions can exceed 1 kpc in the Solar neighborhood, resembling the recently locally detected coherent vertical oscillations. They can also induce non-zero vertical streaming motions as large as 10-20 km s-1, which is consistent with recent observations in the Galactic disk. This phenomenon appears as a local ring with modest associated disk heating. © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved
Structure and Star Formation in NGC 925
We present the results from an optical study of the stellar & star formation
properties of NGC 925 using the WIYN 3.5m telescope. Images in B,V,R, & H-alpha
reveal a galaxy that is fraught with asymmetries. From isophote fits we
discover that the bar center is not coincident with the center of the outer
isophotes nor with the dynamical center (from Pisano et al. 1998). Cuts across
the spiral arms reveal that the northern arms are distinctly different from the
southern arm. The southern arm not only appears more coherent, but the peaks in
stellar and H-alpha emission are found to be coincident with those of the HI
distribution, while no such consistency is present in the northern disk. We
also examine the gas surface density criterion for massive star formation in
NGC 925, and find that its behavior is more consistent with that for irregular
galaxies, than with late-type spirals. In particular, star formation persists
beyond the radius at which the gas surface density falls below the predicted
critical value for star formation for late-type spirals. Such properties are
characteristic of Magellanic spirals, but are present at a less dramatic level
in NGC 925, a late-type spiral.Comment: accepted for publication in the August 2000 Astronomical Journal 12
pages, 3 tables, 14 figure
Modelling the Pioneer anomaly as modified inertia
This paper proposes an explanation for the Pioneer anomaly: an unexplained
Sunward acceleration of 8.74 +/- 1.33 x 10^-10 m s^-2 seen in the behaviour of
the Pioneer probes. Two hypotheses are made: (1) Inertia is a reaction to Unruh
radiation and (2) this reaction is weaker for low accelerations because some
wavelengths in the Unruh spectrum do not fit within a limiting scale (twice the
Hubble distance) and are disallowed: a process similar to the Casimir effect.
When these ideas are used to model the Pioneer crafts' trajectories there is a
slight reduction in their inertial mass, causing an anomalous Sunward
acceleration of 6.9 +/- 3.5 x 10^-10 m s^-2 which agrees within error bars with
the observed Pioneer anomaly beyond 10 AU from the Sun. This new scheme is
appealingly simple and does not require adjustable parameters. However, it also
predicts an anomaly within 10 AU of the Sun, which has not been observed.
Various observational tests for the idea are proposed.Comment: 15 pages, 2 bw figures, accepted by MNRAS 19th December 200
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