Ionized Gas Kinematics in the Inner 2 pc of the Milky Way: A Spiral Wave in a Keplerian Disk

Details Ionized Gas Kinematics in the Inner 2 pc of the Milky Way: A Spiral Wave in a Keplerian Disk Ionized Gas Kinematics in the Inner 2 pc of the Milky Way: A Spiral Wave in a Keplerian Disk

May 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21823104l&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #231.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Numerous studies have been made of the ionized gas distribution and kinematics in Sgr A West, at the center of the Milky Way. Most of these have modeled the arcs of ionic emission as tidally stretched streamers, with the gas flowing along the streamers. A different model was proposed by Lacy et al. (1991), who argued that the observations required nearly circular motions for much of the gas, rather than motions along the streamers. Several physical explanation were suggested for how such a wave pattern could occur. None of the explanations were very compelling.
We present new observations of the [Ne II] (12.8um) emission from Sgr A West, with improved spectral and spatial resolution (4 km/s and 1 arcsec). We compare the observations with models assuming the gas moves along elliptical orbits and models in which it moves across the streamers on circular orbits. The data strongly favor the latter model for much of the ionized gas. We still have no satisfactory physical explanation for how the gas is organized or ionized along what appears to be spiral wave.
This work was supported by NSF grant AST-0607312.

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