No Arabic abstract
Nonbarred ringed galaxies are relatively normal galaxies showing bright rings of star formation in spite of lacking a strong bar. This morphology is interesting because it is generally accepted that a typical ring forms when material collects near a resonance, set up by the pattern speed of a bar or bar-like perturbation. Our goal in this paper is to examine whether the ring star formation properties are related to the non-axisymmetric gravity potential in general. For this purpose, we obtained H{alpha} emission line images and calculated the line fluxes and star formation rates (SFRs) for 16 nonbarred SA galaxies and four weakly barred SAB galaxies with rings. For comparison, we combine our observations with a re-analysis of previously published data on five SA, seven SAB, and 15 SB galaxies with rings, three of which are duplicates from our sample. With these data, we examine what role a bar may play in the star formation process in rings. Compared to barred ringed galaxies, we find that the inner ring SFRs and H{alpha}+[N ii] equivalent widths in nonbarred ringed galaxies show a similar range and trend with absolute blue magnitude, revised Hubble type, and other parameters. On the whole, the star formation properties of inner rings, excluding the distribution of H ii regions, are independent of the ring shapes and the bar strength in our small samples. We confirm that the deprojected axis ratios of inner rings correlate with maximum relative gravitational force Q_g; however, if we consider all rings, a better correlation is found when local bar forcing at the radius of the ring, Q_r, is used. Individual cases are described and other correlations are discussed. By studying the physical properties of these galaxies, we hope to gain a better understanding of their placement in the scheme of the Hubble sequence and how they formed rings without the driving force of a bar.
Aims. We investigate the effects of ionising photons on accretion and stellar mass growth in a young star forming region, using a Monte Carlo radiation transfer code coupled to a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation. Methods. We introduce the framework with which we correct stellar cluster masses for the effects of photoionising (PI) feedback and compare to the results of a full ionisation hydrodynamics code. Results. We present results of our simulations of star formation in the spiral arm of a disk galaxy, including the effects of photoionising radiation from high mass stars. We find that PI feedback reduces the total mass accreted onto stellar clusters by approximately 23 per cent over the course of the simulation and reduces the number of high mass clusters, as well as the maximum mass attained by a stellar cluster. Mean star formation rates (SFRs) drop from 0.042 solar masses per year in our control run to 0.032 solar masses per year after the inclusion of PI feedback with a final instantaneous SFR reduction of 62 per cent. The overall cluster mass distribution appears to be affected little by PI feedback. Conclusions. We compare our results to the observed extra-galactic Schmidt-Kennicutt relation and the observed properties of local star forming regions in the Milky Way and find that internal photoionising (PI) feedback is unlikely to reduce star formation rates by more than a factor of approximately 2 and thus may play only a minor role in regulating star formation.
Bars inhabit the majority of local-Universe disk galaxies and may be important drivers of galaxy evolution through the redistribution of gas and angular momentum within disks. We investigate the star formation and gas properties of bars in galaxies spanning a wide range of masses, environments, and star formation rates using the MaNGA galaxy survey. Using a robustly-defined sample of 684 barred galaxies, we find that fractional (or scaled) bar length correlates with the hosts offset from the star-formation main sequence. Considering the morphology of the H$alpha$ emission we separate barred galaxies into different categories, including barred, ringed, and central configurations, together with H$alpha$ detected at the ends of a bar. We find that only low-mass galaxies host star formation along their bars, and that this is located predominantly at the leading edge of the bar itself. Our results are supported by recent simulations of massive galaxies, which show that the position of star formation within a bar is regulated by a combination of shear forces, turbulence and gas flows. We conclude that the physical properties of a bar are mostly governed by the existing stellar mass of the host galaxy, but that they also play an important role in the galaxys ongoing star formation.
A recent study shows that bars can be induced via interaction of galaxy clusters, but it has been unclear if the bar formation by the interaction between clusters is related to the enhancement of star formation. We study galaxies in 105 galaxy clusters at $0.015<z<0.060$ detected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey data, in order to examine whether the fraction of star-forming galaxies ($f_mathrm{sf}$) in 16 interacting clusters is enhanced compared with that of the other non-interacting clusters and to investigate the possible connection between the $f_mathrm{sf}$ enhancement and the bar formation in interacting clusters. We find that $f_mathrm{sf}$ is moderately higher ($sim20%$) in interacting clusters than in non-interacting clusters and that the enhancement of star formation in interacting clusters occurs only in moderate-mass disk-dominated galaxies ($10^{10.0} le M_mathrm{star}/M_{odot} < 10^{10.4}$ and the bulge-to-total light ratio is $le0.5$). We also find that the enhancement of $f_mathrm{sf}$ in moderate-mass disk-dominated galaxies in interacting clusters is mostly due to the increase of the number of barred galaxies. Our result suggests that the cluster-cluster interaction can simultaneously induce bars and star formation in disk galaxies.
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 triggered solely by a bar potential. The star formation recipes include a density threshold, an efficiency, conversion of gas to star particles, and delayed momentum feedback via supernova explosions. We find that star formation rate (SFR) in a nuclear ring is roughly equal to the mass inflow rate to the ring, while it has a weak dependence on the total gas mass in the ring. The SFR typically exhibits a strong primary burst followed by weak secondary bursts before declining to very small values. The primary burst is associated with the rapid gas infall to the ring due to the bar growth, while the secondary bursts are caused by re-infall of the ejected gas from the primary burst. While star formation in observed rings persists episodically over a few Gyr, the duration of active star formation in our models lasts for only about a half of the bar growth time, suggesting that the bar potential alone is unlikely responsible for gas supply to the rings. When the SFR is low, most star formation occurs at the contact points between the ring and the dust lanes, leading to an azimuthal age gradient of young star clusters. When the SFR is large, on the other hand, star formation is randomly distributed over the whole circumference of the ring, resulting in no apparent azimuthal age gradient. Since the ring shrinks in size with time, star clusters also exhibit a radial age gradient, with younger clusters found closer to the ring. The cluster mass function is well described by a power law, with a slope depending on the SFR. Giant gas clouds in the rings have supersonic internal velocity dispersions and are gravitationally bound.
We investigate the location of an ultra-hard X-ray selected sample of AGN from the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) catalog with respect to the main sequence (MS) of star-forming galaxies using Herschel-based measurements of the star formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass (mstar) from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry where the AGN contribution has been carefully removed. We construct the MS with galaxies from the Herschel Reference Survey and Herschel Stripe 82 Survey using the exact same methods to measure the SFR and mstar{} as the Swift/BAT AGN. We find a large fraction of the Swift/BAT AGN lie below the MS indicating decreased specific SFR (sSFR) compared to non-AGN galaxies. The Swift/BAT AGN are then compared to a high-mass galaxy sample (COLD GASS), where we find a similarity between the AGN in COLD GASS and the Swift/BAT AGN. Both samples of AGN lie firmly between star-forming galaxies on the MS and quiescent galaxies far below the MS. However, we find no relationship between the X-ray luminosity and distance from the MS. While the morphological distribution of the BAT AGN is more similar to star-forming galaxies, the sSFR of each morphology is more similar to the COLD GASS AGN. The merger fraction in the BAT AGN is much higher than the COLD GASS AGN and star-forming galaxies and is related to distance from the MS. These results support a model in which bright AGN tend to be in high mass star-forming galaxies in the process of quenching which eventually starves the supermassive black hole itself.