除了在M81的盘面上出现的宏伟设计的恒星旋臂外,最近Kendall等人(2008)还发现了一对位于M81明亮凸起内部的恒星旋臂。看似不相关的螺旋对对螺旋密度波理论提出了挑战。为了解决这个问题,我们已经建立了一个三个组件模型的M81,包括从一个恒星盘,一个隆起,和一个暗物质晕的观测约束的贡献。给出了M81的基本状态,应用模态方法来搜索离散的不稳定螺旋模式,可以提供对两个螺旋臂存在的理解。结果表明,这种明显分离的内、外螺旋可以解释为一个单一的尾螺旋模式。特别地,这些螺旋共享相同的模式速度25.5 km s $^{-1}$ kpc $^{-1}$,共转半径9.03 kpc。除了计算和观察到的螺旋图案之间的良好的协议,螺旋振幅的变化也可以自然地再现。
英文摘要:
Aside from the grand-design stellar spirals appearing in the disk of M81, a pair of stellar spiral arms situated well inside the bright bulge of M81 has been recently discovered by Kendall et al. (2008). The seemingly unrelated pairs of spirals pose a challenge to the theory of spiral density waves. To address this problem, we have constructed a three component model for M81, including the contributions from a stellar disk, a bulge, and a dark matter halo subject to observational constraints. Given this basic state for M81, a modal approach is applied to search for the discrete unstable spiral modes that may provide an understanding for the existence of both spiral arms. It is found that the apparently separated inner and outer spirals can be interpreted as a single trailing spiral mode. In particular, these spirals share the same pattern speed 25.5 km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$ with a corotation radius of 9.03 kpc. In addition to the good agreement between the calculated and the observed spiral pattern, the variation of the spiral amplitude can also be naturally reproduced.
We investigate the stellar population properties of passive spiral galaxies in the CALIFA survey. Nine spiral galaxies that have NUV-r > 5 and no/weak nebular emission lines in their spectra are selected as passive spirals. Our passive spirals lie in the redshift range of 0.001 < z < 0.021 and have stellar mass range of 10.2 < log(M_{\star}/M_{\odot}) < 10.8. They clearly lie in the domain of early-type galaxies in the WISE IR color-color diagram. We analyze the stellar populations out to two effective radius, using the best-fitting model to the measured absorption line-strength indices in the…
Theoretical studies on the response of interstellar gas to a gravitational potential disc with a quasi-stationary spiral arm pattern suggest that the gas experiences a sudden compression due to standing shock waves at spiral arms. This mechanism, called a galactic shock wave, predicts that gas spiral arms move from downstream to upstream of stellar arms with increasing radius inside a corotation radius. In order to investigate if this mechanism is at work in the grand-design spiral galaxy M51, we have measured azimuthal offsets between the peaks of stellar mass and gas mass distributions in it…
We revisit the swing amplification model of galactic spiral arms proposed by Toomre (1981). We describe the derivation of the perturbation equation in detail and investigate the amplification process of stellar spirals. We find that the elementary process of the swing amplification is the phase synchronization of the stellar epicycle motion. Regardless of the initial epicycle phase, the epicycle phases of stars in a spiral are synchronized during the amplification. Based on the phase synchronization, we explain the dependence of the pitch angle of spirals on the epicycle frequency. We find the…
We compare the stellar motion around a spiral arm created in two different scenarios, transient/co-rotating spiral arms and density-wave-like spiral arms. We generate Gaia mock data from snapshots of the simulations following these two scenarios using our stellar population code, SNAPDRAGONS, which takes into account dust extinction and the expected Gaia errors. We compare the observed rotation velocity around a spiral arm similar in position to the Perseus arm, and find that there is a clear difference in the velocity features around the spiral arm between the co-rotating spiral arm and the d…
We employ very high resolution simulations of isolated Milky Way-like galaxies to study the effect of triaxial dark matter haloes on exponential stellar discs. Non-adiabatic halo shape changes can trigger two-armed grand-design spiral structures which extend all the way to the edge of the disc. Their pattern speed coincides with the inner Lindblad resonance indicating that they are kinematic density waves which can persist up to several Gyr. In dynamically cold discs, grand-design spirals are swing amplified and after a few Gyr can lead to the formation of (multi-armed) transient recurrent spi…
This letter studies the formation of azimuthal metallicity variations in the disks of spiral galaxies in the absence of initial radial metallicity gradients. Using high-resolution $N$-body simulations, we model composite stellar discs, made of kinematically cold and hot stellar populations, and study their response to spiral arm perturbations. We find that, as expected, disk populations with different kinematics respond differently to a spiral perturbation, with the tendency for dynamically cooler populations to show a larger fractional contribution to spiral arms than dynamically hotter popul…
The solar neighborhood contains disc stars that have recently crossed spiral arms in the Galaxy. We propose that boundaries in local velocity distributions separate stars that have recently crossed or been perturbed by a particular arm from those that haven't. Ridges in the stellar velocity distributions constructed from the second Gaia data release trace orbits that could have touched nearby spiral arms at apocentre or pericentre. The multiple ridges and arcs seen in local velocity distributions are consistent with the presence of multiple spiral features and different pattern speeds and impl…
We perform local $N$-body simulations of disk galaxies and investigate the evolution of spiral arms. We calculate the time autocorrelation of the surface density of spiral arms and find that the typical evolution timescale is described by the epicycle period. We investigate the distribution of the orbital elements of stars and find that in spiral arms the epicycle motions of stars are in phase while the spatial distribution of the guiding center is nearly uniform. These facts clearly show that the phase synchronization of the epicycle motion takes place, which is theoretically predicted by the…
To pinpoint the peak location of the synchrotron total intensity emission in a spiral arm, we use a map of the spiralarm locations (from the observed arm tangent). Thus In a typical spiral arm in Galactic Quadrant I, we find the peak of the synchrotron radiation to be located about 220 +/-40 pc away from the inner arm edge (hot dust lane) inside the spiral arm. While most of the galactic disk has a clockwise largescale magnetic field, we make a statistical analysis to delimitate more precisely the smaller reverse annulus wiith a counterclockwise galactic magnetic field. We find an annulus widt…
We investigate the stellar populations of passive spiral galaxies as a function of mass and environment, using integral field spectroscopy data from the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field spectrograph Galaxy Survey. Our sample consists of $52$ cluster passive spirals and $18$ group/field passive spirals, as well as a set of S0s used as a control sample. The age and [Z/H] estimated by measuring Lick absorption line strength indices both at the center and within $1R_{\rm e}$ do not show a significant difference between the cluster and the field/group passive spirals. However, the field/group…
We investigate the spatial regularity in the distribution of the young stellar population along spiral arms of three late type spiral galaxies: NGC 895, NGC 5474, and NGC 6946. This study is based on an analysis of photometric properties of spiral arms using {\it GALEX} ultraviolet, optical UBVRI, Halpha, and 8mum {IRAC} infrared surface photometry data. Using the Fourier analysis approach, we found features of spatial regularity or quasi-regularity in the distribution of the young stellar population or (and) regular chains of star formation regions in all arms of NGC 895, NGC 5474, and NGC 69…
We have observed an N-body/Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulation of a Milky Way like barred spiral galaxy. We present a simple method that samples N-body model particles into mock Gaia stellar observations and takes into account stellar populations, dust extinction and Gaia's science performance estimates. We examine the kinematics around a nearby spiral arm at a similar position to the Perseus arm at three lines of sight in the disc plane; (l,b)=(90,0), (120,0) and (150,0) degrees. We find that the structure of the peculiar kinematics around the co-rotating spiral arm, which is found in …
The stellar velocity dispersion, $σ$, is a quantity of crucial importance for spiral galaxies, where it enters fundamental dynamical processes such as gravitational instability and disc heating. Here we analyse a sample of 34 nearby spirals from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) spectroscopic survey, deproject the line-of-sight $σ$ to $σ_{R}$ and present reliable radial profiles of $σ_{R}$ as well as accurate measurements of $\langleσ_{R}\rangle$, the radial average of $σ_{R}$ over one effective (half-light) radius. We show that there is a trend for $σ_{R}$ to increase with de…
Tidal interactions between disc galaxies and low mass companions are an established method for generating galactic spiral features. In this work we present a study of the structure and dynamics of spiral arms driven in interactions between disc galaxies and perturbing companions in 3-D N-body/smoothed hydrodynamical numerical simulations. Our specific aims are to characterize any differences between structures formed in the gas and stars from a purely hydrodynamical and gravitational perspective, and to find a limiting case for spiral structure generation. Through analysis of a number of diffe…
Spiral galaxies are common in the local Universe, but their formation, evolution, and interplay with bars remain poorly understood. We use a sample of 391 nearby galaxies from the S$^4$G survey to characterise the winding angle and amplitude of spiral arms as a function of disc properties, such as bar strength, in all kinds of spirals (grand-design, multi-armed, and flocculent). We derive global pitch angles in 3.6 $μ$m de-projected images from i) average measurements of individual logarithmic spiral segments, and ii) for a subsample of 32 galaxies, from 2-D Fourier analyses. The strength of s…
Stationary density waves rotating at a constant pattern speed $Ω_{\rm P}$ would produce age gradients across spiral arms. We test whether such age gradients are present in M81 by deriving the recent star formation histories (SFHs) of 20 regions around one of M81's grand-design spiral arms. For each region, we use resolved stellar populations to determine the SFH by modeling the observed color-magnitude diagram (CMD) constructed from archival Hubble Space Telescope (HST) F435W and F606W imaging. Although we should be able to detect systematic time delays in our spatially-resolved SFHs, we find …
Theories of stellar spiral arms in disk galaxies can be grouped into two classes based on the longevity of a spiral arm. Although the quasi-stationary density wave theory supposes that spirals are rigidly-rotating, long-lived patterns, the dynamic spiral theory predicts that spirals are differentially-rotating, transient, recurrent patterns. In order to distinguish between the two spiral models from observations, we performed hydrodynamic simulations with steady and dynamic spiral models. Hydrodynamics simulations in steady spiral models demonstrated that the dust lane locations relative to th…
We investigate the star formation histories (SFHs) of massive red spiral galaxies with stellar mass $M_\ast>10^{10.5}M_\odot$, and make comparisons with blue spirals and red ellipticals of similar masses. We make use of the integral field spectroscopy from the SDSS-IV/DR15 MaNGA sample, and estimate spatially resolved SFHs and stellar population properties of each galaxy by applying a Bayesian spectral fitting code to the MaNGA spectra. We find that both red spirals and red ellipticals have experienced only one major star formation episode at early times, and the result is independent of the a…
This paper presents a detailed analysis of two-armed spiral structure in a sample of galax- ies from the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey (SINGS), with particular focus on the relationships between the properties of the spiral pattern in the stellar disc and the global struc- ture and environment of the parent galaxies. Following Paper I we have used a combination of Spitzer Space Telescope mid-infrared imaging and visible multi-colour imaging to isolate the spiral pattern in the underlying stellar discs, and we examine the systematic behaviours of the observed amplitudes and shapes (pi…
We perform a "fossil record" analysis for ~800 low-redshift spiral galaxies, using STARLIGHT applied to integral field spectroscopic observations from the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey to obtain fully spatially-resolved high-resolution star formation histories (SFHs). From the SFHs, we are able to build maps indicating the present-day distribution of stellar populations of different ages in each galaxy. We find small negative mean age gradients in most spiral galaxies, especially at high stellar mass, which reflects the formation times of stellar populations at different galactocentric radii. We show t…
Spiral structure (both flocculent and Grand Design types) is very rarely observed in dwarf galaxies because the formation of spiral arms requires special conditions. In this work we analyze the sample of about 40 dS-galaxies found by scanning by eye the images of late-type galaxies with $m_B<15^m$ and $M_B>-18^m$ and photometric diameter $D_{25}<12$~kpc. We found that apart from the lower average gas (HI) fraction the other properties of dS-galaxies including the presence of a bar and the isolation index do not differ much from those for dwarf Irr or Sm-types of similar luminosity and rotation…
We perform Jeans anisotropic modeling (JAM) on elliptical and spiral galaxies from the MaNGA DR13 sample. By comparing the stellar mass-to-light ratios estimated from stellar population synthesis (SPS) and from JAM, we find a similar systematic variation of the initial mass function (IMF) as in the earlier $\rm ATLAS^{3D}$ results. Early type galaxies (elliptical and lenticular) with lower velocity dispersions within one effective radius are consistent with a Chabrier-like IMF while galaxies with higher velocity dispersions are consistent with a more bottom heavy IMF such as the Salpeter IMF. …
Grand Design and Flocculent Spirals in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G)
斯皮策银河系恒星结构巡天(Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galvanian,S4G)中的46个星系的旋臂性质被测量到3.6 μ,在那里消光很小,老恒星占主导地位。该样品包括絮凝,多臂,并与广泛的哈勃和酒吧类型的大设计类型。我们发现,大多数光学絮凝星系也絮凝在中红外,因为恒星形成与恒星密度波不相关,而多臂和大设计星系有潜在的恒星波。臂间对比度从絮状增加到多臂,再到宏伟的设计星系和后来的哈勃类型。与以前的调查相比,可以在盘中进一步追踪结构。有些螺旋在中间半径处达到顶峰,而另一些则不断上升或下降,这取决于哈勃和棒的类型。我们发现的证据,在NGC 4321的手臂力量的定期和对称调制。在早期类型的螺旋中,棒倾向于长,高振幅和平坦轮廓,臂对比度随着棒末端的半径而减小,而在晚期哈勃类型中,它们倾向于短,低振幅和指数轮廓,臂对比度恒定或随着半径而增加。较长的条形图往往具有较大的振幅和较强的臂。
Gas response to the underlying stellar spirals is explored for M81 using unmagnetized hydrodynamic simulations. Constrained within the uncertainty of observations, 18 simulations are carried out to study the effects of selfgravity and to cover the parameter space comprising three different sound speeds and three different arm strengths. The results are confronted with those data observed at wavelengths of 8 $μ$m and 21 cm. In the outer disk, the ring-like structure observed in 8 $μ$m image is consistent with the response of cold neutral medium with an effective sound speed 7 km s$^{-1}$, while…
The Sa spiral NGC 4138 is known to host two counter-rotating stellar disks, with the ionized gas co-rotating with one of them. We measured the kinematics and properties of the two counter-rotating stellar populations to constrain their formation scenario. A spectroscopic decomposition of the observed major-axis spectrum was performed to disentangle the relative contribution of the two counter-rotating stellar and one ionized-gas components. The line-strength indices of the two counter-rotating stellar components were measured and modeled with single stellar population models that account for t…
Spiral arms across stellar populations in simulations via the local dimension method
Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (ICCUB), Universitat de Barcelona(宇宙科学研究所,巴塞罗那大学);Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya(加泰罗尼亚空间研究研究所);Jeremiah Horrocks Institute, University of Central Lancashire(杰里米·霍罗克斯研究所,中央兰开夏大学)
We investigate models of the Milky Way disc taking into account simultaneously the bar and a two-armed quasi-static spiral pattern. Away from major resonance overlaps, the mean stellar radial motions in the plane are essentially a linear superposition of the isolated effects of the bar and spirals. Thus, provided the bar is strong enough, even in the presence of spiral arms, these mean radial motions are predominantly affected by the Galactic bar for large scale velocity fluctuations. This is evident when comparing the peculiar line-of-sight velocity power spectrum of our coupled models with b…
The role of different stellar feedback mechanisms in giant molecular clouds is not well understood. This is especially true for regions with many interacting clouds as would be found in a galactic spiral arm. In this paper, building on previous work by Bending et al., we extract a $500\times500\times100$ pc section of a spiral arm from a galaxy simulation. We use smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to re-simulate the region at higher resolution (1 M$_\odot$ per particle). We present a method for momentum-driven stellar winds from main sequence massive stars, and include this with photoioniza…
We performed the long-slit observations of spiral galaxy UGC11919 with the Russian 6-m telescope to study its kinematics and stellar population. The previous studies gave basis to suspect that this galaxy possesses a peculiarly low mass-to-light ratio $M/L_B$ of stellar population which could indicate the presence of bottom-light stellar initial mass function (IMF). The ratio $M/L_B$ estimated for different evolutionary models of stellar population using both the broad-band magnitudes and the detailed spectral data confirms this peculiarity if the disc inclination angle $i>30^o$, as it was obt…
We have identified 1027 star forming complexes in a sample of 46 galaxies from the Spirals, Bridges, and Tails (SB&T) sample of interacting galaxies, and 693 star forming complexes in a sample of 38 non-interacting spiral (NIS) galaxies in $8\rm{μm}$ observations from the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera. We have used archival multi-wavelength UV-to IR observations to fit the observed spectral energy distribution (SED) of our clumps with the Code Investigating GALaxy Emission (CIGALE) using a double exponentially declined star formation history (SFH). We derive SFRs, stellar masses, ages and frac…
Understanding the effect spiral structure has on star formation properties of galaxies is important to completing our picture of spiral structure evolution. Previous studies have investigated connections between spiral arm properties with star formation, but the effect that the number of spiral arms has on this process is unclear. Here we use the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey paired with the citizen science visual classifications from the Galaxy Zoo project to explore galaxies' spiral arm number and how it connects to the star formation process. We use the votes from the GAMA-KiDS Gal…
Galaxies are thought to grow through accretion; as less massive galaxies are disrupted and merge over time, their debris results in diffuse, clumpy stellar halos enveloping the central galaxy. Here we present a study of the variation in the stellar halos of galaxies, using data from the Dragonfly Nearby Galaxies Survey (DNGS). The survey consists of wide field, deep ($μ_{g} > 31$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$) optical imaging of nearby galaxies using the Dragonfly Telephoto Array. Our sample includes eight spiral galaxies with stellar masses similar to that of the Milky Way, inclinations of $16-90$ degree…
The relative contribution of various physical processes to the spatial and temporal distribution of molecular clouds and star-forming regions in the disks of galaxies has not been fully studied. The spatial regularity in the distribution of the young stellar population in spiral and ring structures is a good test to study this contribution. We investigate photometric properties of the ring and spiral arms in the barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217 based on analysis of GALEX ultraviolet, optical UBVRI and Halpha surface photometry data. The ring in the galaxy is located near the corotation area. A sp…
The Galactic center of the Milky-Way harbors a massive black hole (BH) orbited by a diverse population of young and old stars. A significant fraction of the youngest stars ($\sim4-7$ Myr) reside in a thin stellar disk with puzzling properties; the disk appears to be warped, shows asymmetries, and contains one or more clumpy structures (e.g. IRS 13). Models explaining the clumping invoked the existence of an intermediate-mass BH of $10^{3}-10^{4}$ M$_{\odot}$, but no kinematic evidence for such a BH has been found. Here we use extended $N$-body simulations and hybrid self-consistent field metho…
Spiral arms shown by different components may not be spatially coincident, which can constrain formation mechanisms of spiral structure in a galaxy. We reassess the spiral arm tangency directions in the Milky Way through identifying the bump features in the longitude plots of survey data for infrared stars, radio recombination lines (RRLs), star formation sites, CO, high density regions in clouds, and HI. The bump peaks are taken as indications for arm tangencies, which are close to the real density peaks near the spiral arm tangency point but often have $\sim$ 1$^\circ$ offset to the interior…
We address the nature and origin of a spiral disk at the center of NGC 1275, the giant elliptical galaxy at the center of the Perseus cluster, that spans a radius of $\sim$$5\,\rm kpc$. By comparing stellar absorption lines measured in long-slit optical spectra with synthetic spectra for single stellar populations, we find that fitting of these lines requires two stellar populations: (i) a very young population that peaks in radial velocity at $\pm 250 {\rm \, km \, s^{-1}}$ of the systemic velocity within a radius of $\sim$$720\,\rm pc$ of the nucleus, a $1\,σ$ velocity dispersion significant…
Key information to understand the formation and evolution of disk galaxies are imprinted in the stellar populations of their bulges. This paper has the purpose to make available new measurements of the stellar population properties of the bulges of four spiral galaxies. Both the central values and radial profiles of the line strength of some of the most common Lick indices are measured along the major- and minor- axis of the bulge-dominated region of the sample galaxies. The corresponding age, metallicity, and α/Fe ratio are derived by using the simple stellar population synthesis model predic…
We look for correlated changes in stellar mass and star formation rate along filaments in the cosmic web by examining the stellar masses and UV-derived star formation rates (SFR) of 1,799 ungrouped and unpaired spiral galaxies that reside in filaments. We devise multiple distance metrics to characterise the complex geometry of filaments, and find that galaxies closer to the cylindrical centre of a filament have higher stellar masses than their counterparts near the periphery of filaments, on the edges of voids. In addition, these peripheral spiral galaxies have higher specific star formation r…
We perform full spectrum fitting stellar population analysis and Jeans Anisotropic modelling (JAM) of the stellar kinematics for about 2000 early-type galaxies (ETGs) and spiral galaxies from the MaNGA DR14 sample. Galaxies with different morphologies are found to be located on a remarkably tight mass plane which is close to the prediction of the virial theorem, extending previous results for ETGs. By examining an inclined projection (`the mass-size' plane), we find that spiral and early-type galaxies occupy different regions on the plane, and their stellar population properties (i.e. age, met…
The properties and star formation processes in the far-outer disks of nearby spiral and dwarf irregular galaxies are reviewed. The origin and structure of the generally exponential profiles in stellar disks is considered to result from cosmological infall combined with a non-linear star formation law and a history of stellar migration and scattering from spirals, bars, and random collisions with interstellar clouds. In both spirals and dwarfs, the far-outer disks tend to be older, redder and thicker than the inner disks, with the overall radial profiles suggesting inside-out star formation plu…
We have measured the relationships between HI mass, stellar mass and star formation rate using the HI Parkes All Sky-Survey Catalogue (HICAT) and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Of the 3,513 HICAT sources, we find 3.4 micron counterparts for 2,896 sources (80%) and provide new WISE matched aperture photometry for these galaxies. For our principal sample of spiral galaxies with W1 $\le$ 10 mag and z $\le$ 0.01, we identify HI detections for 93% of the sample. We measure lower HI-stellar mass relationships that HI selected samples that do not include spiral galaxies with little H…
Stationary Density Wave Theory predicts the existence of an age gradient across the spiral arms with a phase crossing at the co-rotation radius. Using star formation history (SFH) maps of 12 nearby spiral galaxies derived from \textsc{LIGHTNING} \citep{Eufracio:2017}, a spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting procedure, and by using \textsc{Spirality} \citep{Shield:2015} a \textsc{MATLAB}-based code which plots synthetic spiral arms over \textsc{FITS} images, we have found a gradual decrement in pitch angles with increasing age, thus providing us with evidence in favour of the Stationary De…
The recent discovery of a spiral pattern in the vertical kinematic structure in the solar neighborhood provides a prime opportunity to study non-equilibrium dynamics in the Milky Way from local stellar kinematics. Furthermore, results from simulations indicate that even in a limited volume, differences in stellar orbital histories allow us to trace variations in the initial perturbation across large regions of the disk. We present $\texttt{ESCARGOT}$, a novel algorithm for studying these variations in both simulated and observed data sets. $\texttt{ESCARGOT}$ automatically extracts key quantit…
Tidal encounters are believed to be one of the key drivers of galactic spiral structure in the Universe. Such spirals are expected to produce different morphological and kinematic features compared to density wave and dynamic spiral arms. In this work we present high resolution simulations of a tidal encounter of a small mass companion with a disc galaxy. Included are the effects of gas cooling and heating, star formation and stellar feedback. The structure of the perturbed disc differs greatly from the isolated galaxy, showing clear spiral features that act as sites of new star formation, and…