Related papers: Cool Gas and Massive Stars - the Nuclear Ring in M…

(Abridged) Star-forming nuclear rings in barred galaxies are common in nearby spirals, and their detailed study can lead to important insights into the evolution of galaxies, their bars, and their central regions. We present integral field…

We have obtained integral-field spectroscopic data, using the SAURON instrument, of the bar and starbursting circumnuclear region in the barred spiral galaxy M100. From our data we have derived kinematic maps of the mean velocity and…

We present new high-resolution observations of the center of the late-type spiral M100 (NGC 4321) supplemented by 3D numerical modeling of stellar and gas dynamics, including star formation (SF). NIR imaging has revealed a stellar bar,…

We investigate gas dynamics in the presence of a double inner Lindblad resonance within a barred disk galaxy. Using an example of a prominent spiral, M100, we reproduce the basic central morphology, including four dominant regions of star…

I discuss new observations of circumnuclear regions in barred galaxies, both of their kinematics and their near-infrared (NIR) morphology. New kinematic observations of M100 confirm that (1) the inner bar-like feature detected before in…

High-resolution NIR and optical images are used to constrain a dynamical model of the circumnuclear star forming (SF) region in the barred galaxy M100 (=NGC 4321). Subarcsecond resolution allowed us to distinguish important morphological…

We present optical broad- and narrow-band imaging of a sample of a dozen barred galaxies. These images are analyzed in conjunction with our previously published near-infrared imaging of their central regions and with literature values for,…

NGC 4314 is an early-type barred galaxy containing a nuclear ring of recent star formation. We present CO(1-0) interferometer data of the bar and circumnuclear region with 2.3 x 2.2 arcsec spatial resolution and 13 km/s velocity resolution…

Through observations and modeling, we demonstrate how the recently discovered large-scale bar in NGC 5248 generates spiral structure which extends from 10 kpc down to 100 pc, fuels star formation on progressively smaller scales, and drives…

Using hydrodynamic simulations, we investigate the physical properties of gaseous substructures in barred galaxies and their relationships with the bar strength. The gaseous medium is assumed to be isothermal and unmagnetized. The bar…

Massive star formation in the central regions of spiral galaxies plays an important role in the dynamical and secular evolution of their hosts. Here, we summarise a number of recent investigations of the star formation history and the…

Nuclear rings, prevalent in barred galaxies, are essential to understanding gas transport toward galactic nuclei. However, the peculiar nuclear ring in our neighboring galaxy M31 remains poorly understood. Here we present a comprehensive…

We have obtained ground-based I, J and K band images of the spiral galaxy, Messier 74 (NGC 628). This galaxy has been shown to possess a circumnuclear ring of star formation from both near-infrared spectroscopy of CO absorption and…

We analyse new integral field spectroscopy of the inner region (central 2.5 kpc) of the spiral galaxy NGC 4321 to study the peculiar kinematics of this region. Fourier analysis of the velocity residuals obtained by subtracting an…

Galactic bars can drive cold gas inflows towards the centres of galaxies. The gas transport happens primarily through the so-called bar ``dust lanes'', which connect the galactic disc at kpc scales to the nuclear rings at hundreds of pc…

We present new maps of emission-line flux distributions and kinematics in both ionized (traced by HI and [FeII] lines) and molecular (H2) gas of the inner 0.7x0.7kpc2 of the galaxy NGC4303, with a spatial resolution 40-80pc and velocity…

We present new J=1-0 12-CO observations along the northern spiral arm of the grand-design spiral galaxy M100 (NGC 4321), and study the distribution of molecular hydrogen as derived from these observations, comparing the new data with a set…

We give two examples of spiral galaxies that show non-circular gas motions in the inner kiloparsecs, from SAURON integral field spectroscopy. We use harmonic decomposition of the velocity field of the ionized gas to study the underlying…

Nuclear rings in barred galaxies are sites of active star formation. We use hydrodynamic simulations to study temporal and spatial behavior of star formation occurring in nuclear rings of barred galaxies where radial gas inflows are…

We present CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) maps of the LINER galaxy NGC7217, obtained with the IRAM interferometer, at 2.4"x1.9" and 1.2"x0.8" resolution respectively. The nuclear ring (at r=12"=0.8kpc) dominates the CO maps, and has a remarkable sharp…