We analyze the formation and evolution of the stellar components in "Eris", a 120 pc-resolution cosmological hydrodynamic simulation of a late-type spiral galaxy. The simulation includes the effects of a uniform UV background, a delayed-radiative-cooling scheme for supernova feedback, and a star formation recipe based on a high gas density threshold. It allows a detailed study of the relative contributions of "in-situ" (within the main host) and "ex-situ" (within satellite galaxies) star formation to each major Galactic component in a close Milky Way analog. We investigate these two star-formation channels as a function of galactocentric distance, along different lines of sight above and along the disk plane, and as a function of cosmic time. We find that: 1) approximately 70 percent of today's stars formed in-situ; 2) more than two thirds of the ex-situ stars formed within satellites after infall; 3) the majority of ex-situ stars are found today in the disk and in the bulge; 4) the stellar halo is dominated by ex-situ stars, whereas in-situ stars dominate the mass profile at distances < 5 kpc from the center at high latitudes; and 5) approximately 25% of the inner, r < 20 kpc, halo is composed of in-situ stars that have been displaced from their original birth sites during Eris' early assembly history.
We present observations of an H$α$ emitting knot in the thick disk of NGC 4013, demonstrating it is an H II region surrounding a cluster of young hot stars $z = 860$ pc above the plane of this edge-on spiral galaxy. With LBT/MODS spectroscopy we show this H II region has an H$α$ luminosity $\sim 4$ - 7 times that of the Orion nebula, with an implied ionizing photon production rate $\log Q_0 \gtrsim 49.4$ (photons s$^{-1}$). HST/WFPC2 imaging reveals an associated blue continuum source with $M_{V} = -8.21\pm0.24$. Together these properties demonstrate the H II region is powered by a young clust…
We built models for low bulge mass spiral galaxies (late type as defined by the Hubble classification) using a 3-D self-gravitating model for spiral arms, and analyzed the orbital dynamics as a function of pitch angle, going from 10$°$ to 60$°$. Testing undirectly orbital self-consistency, we search for the main periodic orbits and studied the density response. For pitch angles up to approximately $\sim 20°$, the response supports closely the potential permitting readily the presence of long lasting spiral structures. The density response tends to "avoid" larger pitch angles in the potential, …
We have measured the positions of large numbers of H II regions in four nearly face-on, late-type, spiral galaxies: NGC 628 (M 74), NGC 1232, NGC 3184 and NGC 5194 (M 51). Fitting log-periodic spiral models to segments of each arm yields local estimates of spiral pitch angle and arm width. While pitch angles vary considerably along individual arms, among arms within a galaxy, and among galaxies, we find no systematic trend with galactocentric distance. We estimate the widths of the arm segments from the scatter in the distances of the H II regions from the spiral model. All major arms in these…
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…
Context. Observations of polarized radio emission show that large-scale (regular) magnetic fields in spiral galaxies are not axisymmetric, but generally stronger in interarm regions. In some nearby galaxies such as NGC 6946 they are organized in narrow magnetic arms situated between the material spiral arms. Aims. The phenomenon of magnetic arms and their relation to the optical spiral arms (the material arms) call for an explanation in the framework of galactic dynamo theory. Several possibilities have been suggested but are not completely satisfactory; here we attempt a consistent investigat…
Spiral galaxies have most of their stellar mass in a large rotating disk, and only a modest fraction in a central spheroidal bulge. This poses a major challenge for cosmological models of galaxy formation. Galaxies form at the centre of dark matter halos through a combination of hierarchical merging and gas accretion along cold streams, and should rapidly grow their bulge through mergers and instabilities. Cosmological simulations predict galaxies to have most of their mass in the central bulge, and therefore an angular momentum much below the observed level, except in dwarf galaxies. We propo…
Bar fractions depend on the properties of the host galaxies, which are closely related to the formation and evolution of bars. However, observational studies do not provide consistent results. We investigate the bar fraction and its dependence on the properties of the host galaxies by using three bar classification methods: visual inspection, ellipse fitting method, and Fourier analysis. Our volume-limited sample consists of 1,698 spiral galaxies brighter than $M_{\rm r}=-15.2$ with $z < 0.01$ from SDSS/DR7 visually classified by Ann et al. (2015). We first compare the consistency of classific…
Spiral formation caused by late infall onto protoplanetary disks
Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg（海德堡大学天文中心理论天体物理研究所）；Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano（米兰大学物理系）
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…
The first mechanism invoked to explain the existence of the thick disk in the Milky Way Galaxy, were the spiral arms. Up-to-date work summon several other possibilities that together seem to better explain this component of our Galaxy. All these processes must affect differently in distinct types of galaxies, but the contribution of each one has not been straightforward to quantify. In this work, we present a first comprehensive study of the effect of the spiral arms in the formation of thick disks, as going from early to late type disk galaxies, in an attempt to characterize and quantify this…
We study the evolution of galactic bars and the link with disk and spheroid formation in a sample of zoom-in cosmological simulations. Our simulation sample focuses on galaxies with present-day stellar masses in the 10^10-10^11 Msun range, in field and loose group environments, with a broad variety of mass growth histories. In our models, bars are almost absent from the progenitors of present-day spirals at z>1.5, and they remain rare and generally too weak to be observable down to z~1. After this characteristic epoch, the fractions of observable and strong bars raise rapidly, bars being prese…
We utilize for the first time HST ACS imaging to examine the structural properties of galaxies in the rest-frame U-V versus V-J diagram (i.e., the UVJ diagram) using a sample at 0.6<z<0.9 that reaches a low stellar mass limit (log M/Msun>10.25). The use of the UVJ diagram as a tool to distinguish quiescent galaxies from star forming galaxies (SFGs) is becoming more common due to its ability to separate red quiescent galaxies from reddened SFGs. Quiescent galaxies occupy a small and distinct region of UVJ color space and we find most of them to have concentrated profiles with high Sersic indice…
We present observations of pseudobulges in S0 and spiral galaxies using imaging data taken with the Spitzer Infra-Red Array Camera. We have used 2-d bulge-disk-bar decomposition to determine structural parameters of 185 S0 galaxies and 31 nearby spiral galaxies. Using the Sersic index and the position on the Kormendy diagram to classify their bulges as either classical or pseudo, we find that 25 S0s (14%) and 24 spirals (77%) host pseudoblges. The fraction of pseudobulges we find in spiral galaxies is consistent with previous results obtained with optical data and show that the evolution of a …
Many spiral galaxy haloes show stellar streams with various morphologies when observed with deep images. The origin of these tidal features is discussed, either coming from a satellite infall or caused by residuals of an ancient, gas-rich major merger. By modelling the formation of the peculiar features observed in the NGC 4013 halo, we investigate their origin. By using GADGET -2 with implemented gas cooling, star formation, and feedback, we have modelled the overall NGC 4013 galaxy and its associated halo features. A gas-rich major merger occurring 2.7-4.6 Gyr ago succeeds in reproducing the…
Spiral galaxies are observed to exhibit a range of morphologies, in particular in the shape of spiral arms. A key diagnostic parameter is the pitch angle, which describes how tightly wound the spiral arms are. Observationally and analytically, a correlation between pitch angle and galactic shear rate has been detected. For the first time, we examine whether this effect is detected in N-body simulations by calculating and comparing pitch angles of both individual density waves and overall spiral structure in a suite of N-body simulations. We find that higher galactic shear rates produce more ti…
About 20% of low-redshift galaxies are late-type spirals with a small or no bulge component. Although they are the simplest disk galaxies in terms of structure and dynamics, the role of the different physical processes driving their formation and evolution is not yet fully understood. We investigated whether small bulges of late-type spirals follow the same scaling relations traced by ellipticals and large bulges and if they are disk-like or classical bulges. We derived the photometric and kinematic properties of 9 nearby late-type spirals. To this aim, we analyzed the surface brightness distr…
We use a sample of 220 face-on bulge-less galaxies situated in the low density environment to estimate their total mass via orbital motions of supposed rare satellites. Our inspection reveals 43 dwarf companions having the mean projected separation of 130 kpc and the mean-square velocity difference of 96 km/s. For them, we obtain the mean orbital-mass-to-K-band luminosity ratio of $20\pm3$. Seven bulge-less spirals in the Local Volume are also characterized by the low mean ratio, $M_{orb}/L_K = 22\pm5$. We conclude that bulge-less Sc-Scd-Sd galaxies have poor dark halos, about two times lower …
Radio continuum observations allow to reveal the magnetic field structure in the disk and halo of nearby spiral galaxies, their magnetic field strength and vertical scale heights. The spiral galaxies studied so far show a similar magnetic field pattern which is of spiral shape along the disk plane and X-shaped in the halo, sometimes accompanied by strong vertical fields above and below the central region of the disk. The strength of the halo field is comparable to that of the disk. The total and turbulent magnetic field strength is (weakly) increasing with the star formation. There are, howeve…
We combine ultraviolet to near-infrared photometry with HI 21cm line observations for a complete volume-limited sample of nearby galaxies in different environments (from isolated galaxies to Virgo cluster members), to study the migration of spirals from the blue to the red sequence. Although our analysis confirms that, in the transition region between the two sequences, a high fraction of spirals host active galactic nuclei (AGN), it clearly shows that late-types with quenched star formation are mainly HI deficient galaxies preferentially found in the Virgo cluster. This not only suggests that…
By means of 3D hydrodynamical simulations, in a separate paper we have discussed the properties of non-axisymmetric density wave trains in the outermost regions of galaxy disks, based on the picture that self-excited global spiral modes in the bright optical stellar disk are accompanied by low-amplitude short trailing wave signals outside corotation; in the gas, such wave trains can penetrate through the outer Lindblad resonance and propagate outwards, forming prominent spiral patterns. In this paper we present the synthetic 21~cm velocity maps expected from simulated models of the outer gaseo…
We conduct a survey of low surface brightness (LSB) satellite galaxies around the Local Volume massive spirals using long exposures with small amateur telescopes. We identified 27 low and very low surface brightness objects around the galaxies NGC,672, 891, 1156, 2683, 3344, 4258, 4618, 4631, and 5457 situated within 10 Mpc from us, and found nothing new around NGC,2903, 3239, 4214, and 5585. Assuming that the dwarf candidates are the satellites of the neighboring luminous galaxies, their absolute magnitudes are in the range of -8.6 > M_B > -13.3, their effective diameters are 0.4-4.7 kpc, and…
We infer the central mass distributions within 0.4-1.2 disc scale lengths of 18 late-type spiral galaxies using two different dynamical modelling approaches - the Asymmetric Drift Correction (ADC) and axisymmetric Jeans Anisotropic Multi-gaussian expansion (JAM) model. ADC adopts a thin disc assumption, whereas JAM does a full line-of-sight velocity integration. We use stellar kinematics maps obtained with the integral-field spectrograph SAURON to derive the corresponding circular velocity curves from the two models. To find their best-fit values, we apply Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) metho…
We analyze the dependence of disk morphology (arm class, Hubble type, bar type) of nearby spiral galaxies on the galaxy environment by using local background density ($Σ_{n}$), projected distance ($r_{p}$), and tidal index ($TI$) as measures of the environment. There is a strong dependence of arm class and Hubble type on the galaxy environment, while the bar type exhibits a weak dependence with a high frequency of SB galaxies in high density regions. Grand design fractions and early-type fractions increase with increasing $Σ_{n}$, $1/r_{p}$, and $TI$, while fractions of flocculent spirals and …
The formation of molecular clouds, which serve as stellar nurseries in galaxies, is poorly understood. A class of cloud formation models suggests that a large-scale galactic magnetic field is irrelevant at the scale of individual clouds, because the turbulence and rotation of a cloud may randomize the orientation of its magnetic field. Alternatively, galactic fields could be strong enough to impose their direction upon individual clouds, thereby regulating cloud accumulation and fragmentation, and affecting the rate and efficiency of star formation. Our location in the disk of the Galaxy makes…
The origin of grand design spiral structure in galaxies is still under debate but one of promising scenarios involves tidal interactions. We use N-body simulations to study the evolution of a Milky Way-size galaxy in a Virgo-like cluster. The galaxy is placed on a typical eccentric orbit and evolved for 10 Gyr. We find that grand design spiral arms are triggered by pericenter passages and later on they wind up and dissipate. The arms formed in the simulations are approximately logarithmic, but are also dynamic, transient and recurrent.
Spiral arm properties of 46 galaxies in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G) were measured at 3.6mu, where extinction is small and the old stars dominate. The sample includes flocculent, multiple arm, and grand design types with a wide range of Hubble and bar types. We find that most optically flocculent galaxies are also flocculent in the mid-IR because of star formation uncorrelated with stellar density waves, whereas multiple arm and grand design galaxies have underlying stellar waves. Arm-interarm contrasts increase from flocculent to multiple arm to grand design galax…
The CALIFA team has recently found that the stellar angular momentum and concentration of late-type spiral galaxies are incompatible with those of lenticular galaxies (S0s), concluding that fading alone cannot satisfactorily explain the evolution from spirals into S0s. Here we explore whether major mergers can provide an alternative way to transform spirals into S0s by analysing the spiral-spiral major mergers from the GalMer database that lead to realistic, relaxed S0-like galaxies. We find that the change in stellar angular momentum and concentration can explain the differences in the $λ_\ma…
Scaling relations among structural and kinematical features of 79 late-type spiral and dwarf irregular galaxies of the SPARC sample are revisited or newly established. The mean central surface brightness <$μ_{0,[3.6]}$> = 19.63 $\pm$ 0.11 mag arcsec$^{-2}$ allows for a clear-cut distinction between low and high surface brightness galaxies irrespective of luminosity. The geometry of rotation curves is characterized by the relation $dv(R_d)/dr \approx v_{max}/R_{max}$. For the rotation curve decompositions we apply dark matter halos of Burkert and of pseudo-isothermal type. The disk mass-to-ligh…
We argue that the periodic variability of Class II methanol masers can be explained by variations of the dust temperature in the accretion disk around proto-binary star with at least one massive component. The dust temperature variations are caused by rotation of hot and dense material of the spiral shock wave in the disk central gap. The aim of this work is to show how different can be the Class II methanol maser brightness in the disk during the Moment of Maximum Illumination by the Spiral Shock material (hereafter MMISS) and the Moment when the disk is Illuminated by the Stars Only (MISO). …
We obtained Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3 imaging of a sample of ten of the nearest and brightest nuclear clusters residing in late-type spiral galaxies, in seven bands that span the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared. Structural properties of the clusters were measured by fitting two-dimensional surface brightness profiles to the images using GALFIT. The clusters exhibit a wide range of structural properties. For six of the ten clusters in our sample, we find changes in the effective radius with wavelength, suggesting radially varying stellar populations. In four of the object…
The circumstellar disk of AB Aurigae has garnered strong attention owing to the apparent existence of spirals at a relatively young stage and also the asymmetric disk traced in thermal dust emission. However, the physical conditions of the spirals are still not well understood. The origin of the asymmetric thermal emission is unclear. We observed the disk at 230 GHz (1.3 mm) in both the continuum and the spectral line ^12CO J=2-1 with IRAM 30-m, the Plateau de Bure interferometer, and the Submillimeter Array to sample all spatial scales from 0.37" to about 50". To combine the data obtained fro…
The density-wave theory of spiral structure proposes that star formation occurs in or near a spiral-shaped region of higher density that rotates rigidly within the galactic disk at a fixed pattern speed. In most interpretations of this theory, newborn stars move downstream of this position as they come into view, forming a downstream spiral which is tighter, with a smaller pitch angle than that of the density wave itself. Rival theories, including theories which see spiral arms as essentially transient structures, may demand that pitch angle should not depend on wavelength. We measure the pitc…
We report the discovery of spiral galaxies that are as optically luminous as elliptical brightest cluster galaxies, with r-band monochromatic luminosity L_r=8-14L* (4.3-7.5E44 erg/s). These super spiral galaxies are also giant and massive, with diameter D=57-134 kpc and stellar mass M_stars=0.3-3.4E11 M_sun. We find 53 super spirals out of a complete sample of 1616 SDSS galaxies with redshift z<0.3 and L_r>8L*. The closest example is found at z=0.089. We use existing photometry to estimate their stellar masses and star formation rates (SFRs). The SDSS and WISE colors are consistent with normal…
CO clouds can be non-self-gravitating in high pressure environments, while most should be strongly self-gravitating at low metallicities and ambient pressures. In the LMC, which is HI-rich, GMC formation and destruction should generally include molecule formation and destruction. In M51, which is CO-rich, GMCs grow by coalescence. The Milky Way is between these two situations. In all cases, large clouds form by accretion of gas and smaller clouds independently of the presence of molecules. GMCs in the Milky Way are analogous to dust lanes and spurs in other galaxies. The virial parameter alpha…
The morphology and kinematics of the spiral structure of the Milky Way is a long-standing problem in astrophysics. In this review we firstly summarize various methods with different tracers used to solve this puzzle. The astrometry of Galactic sources is gradually alleviating this difficult situation caused mainly by large distance uncertainties, as we can currently obtain accurate parallaxes (a few $μ$as) and proper motions ($\approx$ 1 km~s$^{-1}$) by using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). On the other hand, Gaia mission is providing the largest, uniform sample of parallaxes for O-t…
We present the correlation between the extrapolated central disk surface brightness (mu) and extrapolated central surface mass density (Sigma) for galaxies in the DiskMass sample. This mu-Sigma-relation has a small scatter of 30% at the high-surface-brightness (HSB) end. At the low surface brightness (LSB) end, galaxies fall above the mu-Sigma-relation, which we attribute to their higher dark matter content. After correcting for the dark matter, as well as for the contribution of gas and the effects of radial gradients in the disk, the LSB end falls back on the linear mu-Sigma-relation. The re…
It has been believed that spirals in pure stellar disks, especially the ones spontaneously formed, decay in several galactic rotations due to the increase of stellar velocity dispersions. Therefore, some cooling mechanism, for example dissipational effects of the interstellar medium, was assumed to be necessary to keep the spiral arms. Here we show that stellar disks can maintain spiral features for several tens of rotations without the help of cooling, using a series of high-resolution three-dimensional $N$-body simulations of pure stellar disks. We found that if the number of particles is su…
We report HI observations of eight spiral galaxies that are strongly lensing background sources. Our targets were selected from the Sloan WFC (Wide Field Camera) Edge-on Late-type Lens Survey (SWELLS) using the Arecibo, Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, and Green Bank telescopes. We securely detect J1703+2451 at z=0.063 with a signal-to-noise of 6.7 and W50=79+/-13 km/s, obtaining the first detection of HI emission in a strong spiral lens. We measure a mass of M(HI)= 1.77+/-0.06(+0.35/-0.75) x 10^9 M_(sol) for this source. We find that this lens is a normal spiral, with observable properties th…
Standard galaxy formation models predict that large-scale double-lobed radio sources, known as DRAGNs, will always be hosted by elliptical galaxies. In spite of this, in recent years a small number of spiral galaxies have also been found to host such sources. These so-called spiral DRAGNs are still extremely rare, with only $\sim 5$ cases being widely accepted. Here we report on the serendipitous discovery of a new spiral DRAGN in data from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) at 322 MHz. The host galaxy, MCG+07-47-10, is a face-on late-type Sbc galaxy with distinctive spiral arms and pr…
William Wilson Morgan was one of the great astronomers of the twentieth century. He considered himself a morphologist, and was preoccupied throughout his career with matters of classification. Though his early life was difficult, and his pursuit of astronomy as a career was opposed by his father, he took a position at Yerkes Observatory in 1926 and remained there for the rest of his working life. Thematically, his work was also a unified whole. Beginning with spectroscopic studies under Otto Struve at Yerkes Observatory, by the late 1930s he concentrated particularly on the young O and B stars…
The Chandra X-ray Observatory's Cycle 18 Large Program titled "Spiral galaxies of the Virgo Cluster" will image 52 galaxies with the ACIS-S detector. Combined with archival data for an additional 22 galaxies, this will represent the complete sample of 74 spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster with star-formation rates $\gtrsim$ 0.3 $M_{\odot}$/yr. Many of these galaxies are expected to have an active nucleus, signalling the presence of a central black hole. In preparation for this survey, we predict the central black hole masses using the latest black hole scaling relations based on spiral arm p…
Both observations of arc-like structures and luminosity bursts of stars > 1 Myr in age indicate that at least some stars undergo late infall events. We investigate scenarios of replenishing the mass reservoir around a star via capturing and infalling events of cloudlets. We carry out altogether 24 three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of cloudlet encounters with a Herbig star of mass 2.5 solar mass using the moving mesh code AREPO. To account for the two possibilities of a star or a cloudlet traveling through the interstellar medium (ISM), we put either the star or the cloudlet at rest …
