On the morphology of dust lanes in galactic bars




Sanchez-Menguiano L, Perez I, Zurita A, Martinez-Valpuesta I, Aguerri JAL, Sanchez SF, Comeron S, Diaz-Garcia S

2015

 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

MON NOT R ASTRON SOC

450

3

2670

2676

7

0035-8711

1365-2966

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv782



The aim of our study is to use dynamical simulations to explore the influence of two important dynamical bar parameters, bar strength and bar pattern speed on the shape of the bar dust lanes. To quantify the shape of the dust lanes we have developed a new systematic method to measure the dust lane curvature. Previous numerical simulations have compared the curvature of bar dust lanes with the bar strength, predicting a relation between both parameters which has been supported by observational studies but with a large spread. We take into account the bar pattern speed to explore, simultaneously, the effect of both parameters on the dust lane shape. To that end, we separate our galactic bars in fast bars (1 < R < 1.4) and slow bars (R > 1.4), obtaining, as previous simulations, an inverse relation between the dust lane curvature and the bar strength for fast bars. For the first time, we extend the study to slow bars, finding a constant curvature as a function of the bar strength. As a result, we conclude that weak bars with straight dust lanes are candidates for slow bars. Finally, we have analysed a pilot sample of 10 S(4)G galaxies, obtaining dust lane curvatures lying within the range covered by the simulations.




Last updated on 26/11/2024 11:24:09 AM