Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2012-03-12
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Accepted to MNRAS, March 9th, 2012. 17 pages, 16 figures, no tables
Scientific paper
We model the formation of Auriga's Wheel - a recently discovered collisional ring galaxy. Auriga's Wheel has a number of interesting features including a bridge of stars linking the neighbouring elliptical to the ring galaxy, and evidence for components of expansion and rotation within the ring. Using N-body/SPH modelling, we study collisions between an elliptical galaxy and a late-type disk galaxy. A near direct collision, with a mildy inclined disk, is found to reasonably reproduce the general system morphology ~50 Myr following the collision. The collision must have a relatively low velocity (initially ~150 km s^{-1}) in order to form the observed bridge, and simultaneously match the galaxies separation. Our best-match model suggests the total disk galaxy is ~5 times more massive than the elliptical. We find that the velocity of expansion of the ring is sensitive to the mass of the elliptical, while insensitive to the encounter velocity. We evolve our simulation beyond the current epoch to study the future destiny of the galaxy pair. In our model, the nucleus moves further away from the plane of the ring in the direction of the stellar bridge. The nucleus eventually merges with the elliptical galaxy ~100 Myr after the present time. The ring continues to expand for ~200 Myr before collapsing back. The low initial relative velocity of the two galaxies will eventually result in a complete merger.
Conn Blair C.
Fellhauer Michael
Lane Richard R.
Smith Rory
No associations
LandOfFree
Numerical modelling of Auriga's Wheel - a new ring galaxy does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Numerical modelling of Auriga's Wheel - a new ring galaxy, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Numerical modelling of Auriga's Wheel - a new ring galaxy will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-141940