The Formation of Polar Disk Galaxies

Abstract

Polar Ring Galaxies, such as NGC4650A, are a class of galaxy which have two kinematically distinct components that are inclined by almost 90 degrees to each other. These striking galaxies challenge our understanding of how galaxies form; the origin of their distinct components has remained uncertain, and the subject of much debate. We use high-resolution cosmological simulations of galaxy formation to show that Polar Ring Galaxies are simply an extreme example of the angular moment misalignment that occurs during the hierarchical structure formation characteristic of Cold Dark Matter cosmology. In our model, Polar Ring Galaxies form through the continuous accretion of gas whose angular momentum is misaligned with the central galaxy.

Submitted to ApJ. 8 pages in emulate ApJ style. 2 associated animations are found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-H3WzaewdY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xf3fJkgWEg

References in corpus (4)

• The Alignments of the Galaxy Spins with the Real-Space Tidal Field Reconstructed from the Two Mass Redshift Survey
• Are ring galaxies the ancestors of giant low surface brightness galaxies?
• On the origin of anomalous velocity clouds in the Milky Way
• HUDF 1619 - a candidate polar-ring galaxy in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Revisiting the formation History of the minor-axis dust lane galaxy NGC1947