Star formation in nuclear rings Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Mazzuca L.M.
  2. Knapen J.H.
  3. Veilleux S.
  4. Regan M.W.
  5. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

We present results from a photometric H{alpha} survey of 22 nuclear rings, aiming to provide insight into their star formation properties, including age distribution, dynamical timescales, star formation rates, and galactic bar influence. We find a clear relationship between the position angles and ellipticities of the rings and those of their host galaxies, which indicates the rings are in the same plane as the disk and circular. We use population synthesis models to estimate ages of each H{alpha}-emitting (HII) region, which range from 1 to 10Myr throughout the rings. We find that approximately half of the rings contain azimuthal age gradients that encompass at least 25% of the ring, although there is no apparent relationship between the presence or absence of age gradients and the morphology of the rings or their host galaxies. NGC 1343, NGC 1530, and NGC 4321 show clear bipolar age gradients, where the youngest HII regions are located near the two contact points of the bar and ring. We speculate in these cases that the gradients are related to an increased mass inflow rate and/or an overall higher gas density in the ring, which would allow for massive star formation to occur on short timescales, after which the galactic rotation would transport the HII regions around the ring as they age. Two-thirds of the barred galaxies show correlation between the locations of the youngest HII region(s) in the ring and the location of the contact points, which is consistent with predictions from numerical modeling.

Keywords
  1. ring-galaxies
  2. line-intensities
  3. h-ii-regions
  4. visible-astronomy
  5. h-alpha-photometry
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2008ApJS..174..337M
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJS/174/337
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/174/337
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.21740337

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJS/174/337
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJS/174/337
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJS/174/337
IVOA Table Access TAP
http://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJS/174/337/galaxies?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJS/174/337/galaxies?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJS/174/337/galaxies?

History

2009-11-06T15:48:16Z
Resource record created
2009-11-06T15:48:16Z
Created
2017-12-15T10:54:59Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr