Related papers: Pitch angle variations in spiral galaxies
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…
Morphology is the starting point for understanding galaxies. Elmegreen et al. classified spiral galaxies into flocculent, multiple-arm, and grand-design galaxies based on the regularity of their spiral arm structure. With the release of a…
We investigate the use of spiral arm pitch angles as a probe of disk galaxy mass profiles. We confirm our previous result that spiral arm pitch angles (P) are well correlated with the rate of shear (S) in disk galaxy rotation curves. We use…
We use classifications provided by citizen scientists though Galaxy Zoo to investigate the correlation between bulge size and arm winding in spiral galaxies. Whilst the traditional spiral sequence is based on a combination of both measures,…
We present the MATLAB code Spirality, a novel method for measuring spiral arm pitch angles by fitting galaxy images to spiral templates of known pitch. Computation time is typically on the order of 2 minutes per galaxy, assuming at least 8…
Spiral arms are a common feature of local galaxies, but the exact form of the distribution of mass and light in them is not well known. In this work, we aim to measure this distribution as accurately as possible, focusing on individual…
We have imaged a sample of 45 face-on spiral galaxies in the K-band, to determine the morphology of the old stellar population, which dominates the mass in the disk. The K-band images of the spiral galaxies have been used to calculate…
The Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey provides high-quality broad-band optical images of a large sample of nearby galaxies for detailed study of their structure. To probe the physical nature and possible cosmological evolution of spiral arms, a…
The density-wave theory of galactic spiral-arm structure makes a striking prediction that the pitch angle of spiral arms should vary with the wavelength of the galaxy's image. The reason is that stars are born in the density wave but move…
The Galaxy Zoo has provided morphological data on many galaxies. Several biases have been identified in the Galaxy Zoo data. Here we report on a newly discovered selection effect: astronomers interested in studying spiral galaxies may…
Large-scale galactic shocks, predicted by density wave theory, trigger star formation (SF-arms) downstream from the potential of the oldest stars (P-arms), resulting in a color jump from red to blue across spiral arms in the direction of…
We investigate the use of spiral arm pitch angles as a probe of disk galaxy mass profiles. We confirm our previous result that spiral arm pitch angles (P) are well-correlated with the rate of shear (S) in disk galaxy rotation curves, by…
We built a family of non-axisymmetric potential models for normal non-barred or weakly-barred spiral galaxies as defined in the simplest classification of galaxies: the Hubble sequence. For this purpose a three-dimensional self-gravitating…
In spiral galaxies, the pitch angle, $\alpha$, of the spiral arms is often proposed as a discriminator between theories for the formation of the spiral structure. In Lin-Shu density wave theory, $\alpha$ stays constant in time, being simply…
We have studied the pitch angles of spiral arms for 31 distant galaxies at z~0.7 from three Hubble Deep Fields (HDF-N, HDF-S, HUDF). Using the pitch angle - rotation velocity relation calibrated from nearby galaxies, we have estimated the…
According to one version of the recently proposed "manifold" theory that explains the origin of spirals and rings in relation to chaotic orbits, galaxies with stronger bars should have a higher spiral arms pitch angle when compared to…
We investigate how the properties of spiral arms relate to other fundamental galaxy properties, including bars and disc breaks. We use previously published measurements of those properties, and our own measurements of arm and bar contrasts…
Spiral galaxies are ubiquitous in the local Universe. However the properties of spiral arms in them are still not well studied, and there is even less information concerning spiral structure in distant galaxies. We aim to measure the most…
To estimate the parameters of the Galactic spiral structure - namely, the pitch angle i and the number of spiral arms,- data on Galactic masers with known trigonometric parallaxes were used. We applied the well-known method based on…
Spiral arms are the most characteristic features of disc galaxies, easily distinguishable due to their association with ongoing star formation. However, the role of spiral structure in the chemical evolution of galaxies is unclear. Here we…