English

Populating Stellar Orbits Inside a Rotating, Gaseous Bar

Astrophysics 2009-11-06 v1

Abstract

In an effort to better understand the formation and evolution of barred galaxies, we have examined the properties of equatorial orbits in the effective potential of one model of a rapidly rotating, steady-state gas-dynamical bar that has been constructed via a self-consistent hydrodynamical simulation. Using a ``Restriction Hypothesis'' to determine initial conditions, we find that a significant fraction of orbits in this potential are quasi-ergodic and that regular orbits have a ``bowtie'' shape in contrast to the more typical x1 orbits. This bowtie orbit should give a boxy-peanut shape to such systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0101389,
  title  = {Populating Stellar Orbits Inside a Rotating, Gaseous Bar},
  author = {Eric Barnes and Joel E. Tohline},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0101389},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; 29 pages, 29 gif figures