No Arabic abstract
We carry out a direct search for bar-like non-circular flows in intermediate-inclination, gas-rich disk galaxies with a range of morphological types and photometric bar classifications from the first data release (DR1) of the CALIFA survey. We use the DiskFit algorithm to apply rotation only and bisymmetric flow models to H$alpha$ velocity fields for 49/100 CALIFA DR1 systems that meet our selection criteria. We find satisfactory fits for a final sample of 37 systems. DiskFit is sensitive to the radial or tangential components of a bar-like flow with amplitudes greater than $15,$km$,$s$^{-1}$ across at least two independent radial bins in the fit, or ~2.25 kpc at the characteristic final sample distance of ~75 Mpc. The velocity fields of 25/37 $(67.6^{+6.6}_{-8.5}%)$ galaxies are best characterized by pure rotation, although only 17/25 $(68.0^{+7.7}_{-10.4}%)$ of them have sufficient H$alpha$ emission near the galaxy centre to afford a search for non-circular flows. We detect non-circular flows in the remaining 12/37 $(32.4^{+8.5}_{-6.6}%)$ galaxies. We conclude that the non-circular flows detected in 11/12 $(91.7^{+2.8}_{-14.9}%)$ systems stem from bars. Galaxies with intermediate (AB) bars are largely undetected, and our detection thresholds therefore represent upper limits to the amplitude of the non-circular flows therein. We find 2/23 $(8.7^{+9.6}_{-2.9}%)$ galaxies that show non-circular motions consistent with a bar-like flow, yet no photometric bar is evident. This suggests that in ~10% of galaxies either the existence of a bar may be missed completely in photometry or other processes may drive bar-like flows and thus secular galaxy evolution.
We aim at investigating the formation process of weak bars by measuring their properties in a sample of 29 nearby SAB galaxies, spanning a wide range of morphological types and luminosities. The sample galaxies were selected to have an intermediate inclination, a bar at an intermediate angle between the disc minor and major axes, and an undisturbed morphology and kinematics to allow the direct measurement of the bar pattern speed. Combining our analysis with previous studies, we compared the properties of weak and strong bars. We measured the bar radius and strength from the r-band images available in SDSS and bar pattern speed and corotation radius from the stellar kinematics obtained by CALIFA. We derived the bar rotation rate as the ratio between the corotation and bar radii. Thirteen out of 29 galaxies, which were morphologically classified as SABs from a visual inspection, do not actually host a bar component or their central elongated component is not in rigid rotation. We successfully derived the bar pattern speed in 16 objects. Two of them host an ultrafast bar. Using the bar strength to differentiate weak and strong bars, we found that the SABs host shorter bars with smaller corotation radii than their strongly barred counterparts. Weak and strong bars have similar bar pattern speeds and rotation rates, which are all consistent with being fast. We did not observe any difference between the bulge prominence in SAB and SB galaxies, whereas nearly all the weak bars reside in the disc inner parts, contrary to strong bars. We ruled out that the bar weakening is only related to the bulge prominence and that the formation of weak bars is triggered by the tidal interaction with a companion. Our observational results suggest that weak bars may be evolved systems exchanging less angular momentum with other galactic components than strong bars.
More than 10% of the barred galaxies with a direct measurement of the bar pattern speed host an ultrafast bar. These bars extend beyond the corotation radius and challenge our understanding of the orbital structure of barred galaxies. Most of them are found in spiral galaxies, rather than in lenticular ones. We analysed the properties of the ultrafast bars detected in the CALIFA Survey to investigate whether they are an artefact resulting from an overestimation of the bar radius and/or an underestimation of the corotation radius or a new class of bars, whose orbital structure has not yet been understood. We revised the available measurements of the bar radius based on ellipse fitting and Fourier analysis and of the bar pattern speed from the Tremaine-Weinberg method. In addition, we measured the bar radius from the analysis of the maps tracing the transverse-to-radial force ratio, which we obtained from the deprojected i-band images of the galaxies retrieved from the SDSS Survey. We found that nearly all the sample galaxies are spirals with an inner ring or pseudo-ring circling the bar and/or strong spiral arms, which hamper the measurement of the bar radius from the ellipse fitting and Fourier analysis. According to these methods, the bar ends overlap the ring or the spiral arms making the adopted bar radius unreliable. On the contrary, the bar radius from the ratio maps are shorter than the corotation radius. This is in agreement with the theoretical predictions and findings of numerical simulations about the extension and stability of the stellar orbits supporting the bars. We conclude that ultrafast bars are no longer observed when the correct measurement of the bar radius is adopted. Deriving the bar radius in galaxies with rings and strong spiral arms is not straightforward and a solid measurement method based on both photometric and kinematic data is still missing.
We study a sample of 28 S0 galaxies extracted from the integral-field spectroscopic (IFS) survey CALIFA. We combine an accurate two-dimensional (2D) multi-component photometric decomposition with the IFS kinematic properties of their bulges to understand their formation scenario. Our final sample is representative of S0s with high stellar masses ($M_{star}/M_{sun} > 10^{10}$). They lay mainly on the red sequence and live in relatively isolated environments similar to that of the field and loose groups. We use our 2D photometric decomposition to define the size and photometric properties of the bulges, as well as their location within the galaxies. We perform mock spectroscopic simulations mimicking our observed galaxies to quantify the impact of the underlying disc on our bulge kinematic measurements ($lambda$ and $v/sigma$). We compare our bulge corrected kinematic measurements with the results from Schwarzschild dynamical modelling. The good agreement confirms the robustness of our results and allows us to use bulge reprojected values of $lambda$ and $v/sigma$. We find that the photometric ($n$ and $B/T$) and kinematic ($v/sigma$ and $lambda$) properties of our field S0 bulges are not correlated. We demonstrate that this morpho-kinematic decoupling is intrinsic to the bulges and it is not due to projection effects. We conclude that photometric diagnostics to separate different types of bulges (disc-like vs classical) might not be useful for S0 galaxies. The morpho-kinematics properties of S0 bulges derived in this paper suggest that they are mainly formed by dissipation processes happening at high redshift, but dedicated high-resolution simulations are necessary to better identify their origin.
The central regions of disc galaxies hold clues to the processes that dominate their formation and evolution. The TIMER project has obtained high signal-to-noise and spatial resolution integral-field spectroscopy data of the inner few kpc of 21 nearby massive barred galaxies, allowing studies of the stellar kinematics with unprecedented spatial resolution. We confirm theoretical predictions of the effects of bars on stellar kinematics, and identify box/peanuts through kinematic signatures in mildly and moderately inclined galaxies, finding a lower limit to the fraction of massive barred galaxies with box/peanuts at ~62%. Further, we provide kinematic evidence of the connection between barlenses, box/peanuts and bars. We establish the presence of nuclear discs in 19 galaxies and show that their kinematics are characterised by near-circular orbits with low pressure support, and are consistent with the bar-driven secular evolution picture for their formation. In fact, we show that these nuclear discs have, in the region where they dominate, larger rotational support than the underlying main galaxy disc. We define a kinematic radius for the nuclear discs and show that it relates to bar radius, ellipticity and strength, and bar-to-total ratio. Comparing our results with photometric studies, we find that state-of-the-art galaxy image decompositions are able to discern nuclear discs from classical bulges, if the images employed have enough physical spatial resolution. In fact, we show that nuclear discs are typically identified in such image decompositions as photometric bulges with (near-)exponential profiles. However, we find that the presence of composite bulges (galaxies hosting both a classical bulge and a nuclear disc) can often be unnoticed in studies based on photometry alone, and suggest a more stringent threshold to the Sersic index to identify galaxies with pure classical bulges.
We present 80 stellar and ionised gas velocity maps from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey in order to characterize the kinematic orientation of non-interacting galaxies. The study of galaxies in isolation is a key step towards understanding how fast-external processes, such as major mergers, affect kinematic properties in galaxies. We derived the global and individual (projected approaching and receding sides) kinematic position angles (PAs) for both the stellar and ionised gas line-of-sight velocity distributions. When compared to the photometric PA, we find that morpho-kinematic differences are smaller than 22 degrees in 90% of the sample for both components; internal kinematic misalignments are generally smaller than 16 degrees. We find a tight relation between the global stellar and ionised gas kinematic PA consistent with circular-flow pattern motions in both components. This relation also holds generally in barred galaxies across the bar and galaxy disk scales. Our findings suggest that even in the presence of strong bars, both the stellar and the gaseous components tend to follow the gravitational potential of the disk. As a result, kinematic orientation can be used to assess the degree of external distortions in interacting galaxies.