Formation of a Polar Ring Galaxy in a Galaxy Merger | Zendy

Kenji Bekki | Zendy

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Formation of a Polar Ring Galaxy in a Galaxy Merger

Author(s) -

Kenji Bekki

Publication year - 1998

Publication title -

the astrophysical journal

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 2.376

H-Index - 489

eISSN - 1538-4357

pISSN - 0004-637X

DOI - 10.1086/305680

Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , lenticular galaxy , galaxy merger , peculiar galaxy , astronomy , interacting galaxy , brightest cluster galaxy , polar , galaxy , elliptical galaxy

We numerically investigate stellar and gas dynamics in star-forming anddissipative galaxy mergers between two disk galaxies with specific orbitalconfigurations. We find that violent relaxation combined with gaseousdissipation in galaxy merging transforms two disk galaxies into one S0 galaxywith polar-rings: Both the central S0-like host and the polar-ring component ina polar-ring galaxy are originally disk galaxies. We also find that morphologyof the developed polar-rings reflects both the initial orbit configuration ofgalaxy merging and the initial mass ratio of the two merger progenitor diskgalaxies. Based upon these results, we discuss the origin of the fundamentalobservational properties of polar-ring galaxies, such as the prevalence of S0galaxies among polar-ring galaxies, the rarity of polar-ring galaxies among S0galaxies, the dichotomy between narrow polar-rings and annular ones, shapes ofpolar-ring warps, and an appreciably larger amount of interstellar gas in thepolar-ring component.Comment: 42 pages, 19 figures, ApJ in pres

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