288 research outputs found
Scale-free equilibria of self-gravitating gaseous disks with flat rotation curves
We introduce exact analytical solutions of the steady-state hydrodynamic
equations of scale-free, self-gravitating gaseous disks with flat rotation
curves. We express the velocity field in terms of a stream function and obtain
a third-order ordinary differential equation (ODE) for the angular part of the
stream function. We present the closed-form solutions of the obtained ODE and
construct hydrodynamical counterparts of the power-law and elliptic disks, for
which self-consistent stellar dynamical models are known. We show that the
kinematics of the Large Magellanic Cloud can well be explained by our findings
for scale-free elliptic disks.Comment: AAS preprint format, 21 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in
The Astrophysical Journa
Inner Molecular Rings in Barred Galaxies: BIMA SONG CO Observations
Although inner star-forming rings are common in optical images of barred
spiral galaxies, observational evidence for the accompanying molecular gas has
been scarce. In this paper we present images of molecular inner rings, traced
using the CO (1-0) emission line, from the
Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland-Association Survey of Nearby Galaxies (BIMA SONG).
We detect inner ring CO emission from all five SONG barred galaxies classified
as inner ring (type (r)). We also examine the seven SONG barred galaxies
classified as inner spiral (type (s)); in one of these, NGC 3627, we find
morphological and kinematic evidence for a molecular inner ring. Inner ring
galaxies have been classified as such based on optical images, which emphasize
recent star formation. We consider the possibility that there may exist inner
rings in which star formation efficiency is not enhanced. However, we find that
in NGC 3627 the inner ring star formation efficiency is enhanced relative to
most other regions in that galaxy. We note that the SONG (r) galaxies have a
paucity of CO and H alpha emission interior to the inner ring (except near the
nucleus), while NGC 3627 has relatively bright bar CO and H alpha emission; we
suggest that galaxies with inner rings such as NGC 3627 may be misclassified if
there are significant amounts of gas and star formation in the bar.Comment: To be published in the Astrophysical Journal, July 2002 A version of
the paper with full resolution figures is available at:
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~mregan/ms.ps.g
The Mass Inflow Rate in the Barred Galaxy NGC 1530
Mass inflow in barred galaxies has been invoked to account for a wide variety
of phenomena, but until now direct evidence for inflow has been lacking. We
present Fabry-Perot H-alpha observations of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1530
from which we determine velocities of the ionized gas for the entire region
swept by the bar. We compare the velocity field to models of gas flow in barred
spirals and show that it is well reproduced by ideal gas hydrodynamic models.
Inspection of the models and observations reveals that gas entering the bar
dust lanes streams directly down the dust lanes toward the 2 kpc radius nuclear
ring. The models predict that approximately 20% of the gas flowing down the
dust lane enters the nuclear ring; the remaining gas sprays around the ring to
the other bar dust lane. The fraction of the gas entering the ring is
relatively insensitive to the shape or size of the bar. Our observations of the
velocity field and dust optical depth yield a mass inflow rate into the nuclear
ring of 1 solar mass per year.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, aastex 4.0, accepted for publication in Ap J
Letter
Bar Diagnostics in Edge-On Spiral Galaxies. II. Hydrodynamical Simulations
We develop diagnostics based on gas kinematics to identify the presence of a
bar in an edge-on spiral galaxy and determine its orientation. We use
position-velocity diagrams (PVDs) obtained by projecting edge-on
two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of the gas flow in a barred galaxy
potential. We show that when a nuclear spiral is formed, the presence of a gap
in the PVDs, between the signature of the nuclear spiral and that of the outer
parts of the disk, reliably indicates the presence of a bar. This gap is due to
the presence of shocks and inflows in the simulations, leading to a depletion
of the gas in the outer bar region. If no nuclear spiral signature is present
in a PVD, only indirect arguments can be used to argue for the presence of a
bar. The shape of the signature of the nuclear spiral, and to a lesser extent
that of the outer bar region, allows to determine the orientation of the bar
with respect to the line-of-sight. The presence of dust can also help to
discriminate between viewing angles on either side of the bar. Simulations
covering a large fraction of parameter space constrain the bar properties and
mass distribution of observed galaxies. The strongest constraint comes from the
presence or absence of the signature of a nuclear spiral in the PVD.Comment: 25 pages (AASTeX, aaspp4.sty), 11 jpg figures. Accepted for
publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Online manuscript with PostScript
figures available at: http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~bureau/pub_list.htm
The Galactic centre mini-spiral in the mm-regime
The mini-spiral is a feature of the interstellar medium in the central ~2 pc
of the Galactic center. It is composed of several streamers of dust and ionised
and atomic gas with temperatures between a few 100 K to 10^4 K. There is
evidence that these streamers are related to the so-called circumnuclear disk
of molecular gas and are ionized by photons from massive, hot stars in the
central parsec. We attempt to constrain the emission mechanisms and physical
properties of the ionized gas and dust of the mini-spiral region with the help
of our multiwavelength data sets. Our observations were carried out at 1.3 mm
and 3 mm with the mm interferometric array CARMA in California in March and
April 2009, with the MIR instrument VISIR at ESO's VLT in June 2006, and the
NIR Br-gamma with VLT NACO in August 2009. We present high resolution maps of
the mini-spiral, and obtain a spectral index of 0.5 for Sgr A*, indicating an
inverted synchrotron spectrum. We find electron densities within the range
0.8-1.5x10^4 cm-3 for the mini-spiral from the radio continuum maps, along with
a dust mass contribution of ~0.25 solar masses from the MIR dust continuum, and
extinctions ranging from 1.8-3 at 2.16 micron in the Br-gamma line. We observe
a mixture of negative and positive spectral indices in our 1.3 mm and 3 mm
observations of the extended emission of the mini-spiral, which we interpret as
evidence that there are a range of contributions to the thermal free-free
emission by the ionized gas emission and by dust at 1.3 mm.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, accepted to A&
Athena: A New Code for Astrophysical MHD
A new code for astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is described. The
code has been designed to be easily extensible for use with static and adaptive
mesh refinement. It combines higher-order Godunov methods with the constrained
transport (CT) technique to enforce the divergence-free constraint on the
magnetic field. Discretization is based on cell-centered volume-averages for
mass, momentum, and energy, and face-centered area-averages for the magnetic
field. Novel features of the algorithm include (1) a consistent framework for
computing the time- and edge-averaged electric fields used by CT to evolve the
magnetic field from the time- and area-averaged Godunov fluxes, (2) the
extension to MHD of spatial reconstruction schemes that involve a
dimensionally-split time advance, and (3) the extension to MHD of two different
dimensionally-unsplit integration methods. Implementation of the algorithm in
both C and Fortran95 is detailed, including strategies for parallelization
using domain decomposition. Results from a test suite which includes problems
in one-, two-, and three-dimensions for both hydrodynamics and MHD are given,
not only to demonstrate the fidelity of the algorithms, but also to enable
comparisons to other methods. The source code is freely available for download
on the web.Comment: 61 pages, 36 figures. accepted by ApJ
Fabry Perot Halpha Observations of the Barred Spiral NGC 3367
We report the gross properties of the velocity field of the barred spiral
galaxy NGC 3367. The following values were found: inclination with respect to
the plane of the sky, i=30 deg; position angle (PA) of receding semi major axis
PA=51 and systemic velocity V(sys)=3032 km/s. Large velocity dispersion are
observed of upt o 120 km/s in the nuclear region, of up to 70 km/s near the
eastern bright sources just beyond the edge of the stellar bar where three
spiral arms seem to start and in the western bright sources at about 10 kpc.
Deviations from normal circular velocities are observed from all the disk but
mainly from the semi circle formed by the string of south western Halpha
sources. An estimate of the dynamical mass is M(dyn)=2x10^11 Msolar.Comment: Accepted to be published in May 2001 issue in the A.J. 19 pages, 7
figure
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