Populating Stellar Orbits Inside a Rotating, Gaseous Bar

Abstract

In an effort to better understand the formation and evolution of barred galaxies, we have examined the properties of equatorial orbits in the effective potential of one model of a rapidly rotating, steady-state gas-dynamical bar that has been constructed via a self-consistent hydrodynamical simulation. Using a ``Restriction Hypothesis'' to determine initial conditions, we find that a significant fraction of orbits in this potential are quasi-ergodic and that regular orbits have a ``bowtie'' shape in contrast to the more typical x1 orbits. This bowtie orbit should give a boxy-peanut shape to such systems.

Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; 29 pages, 29 gif figures

References in corpus (4)

• The Frequency of Barred Spiral Galaxies in the Near-IR
• Dynamics of Barred Galaxies
• Box- and peanut-shaped bulges: I. Statistics
• Gravitational Waves from Long-Duration Simulations of the Dynamical Bar Instability

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Orbital structure in barred spiral galaxies
• Orbital dynamics of three-dimensional bars: IV. Boxy isophotes in face-on views
• Using Correlation Integrals to Characterize 3D Stellar Orbits
• Models of Bars with Exponential Density Profiles
• Determining the type of orbits in the central regions of barred galaxies