Dust penetrated arm classes: insight from rising and falling rotation curves

Abstract

We present near-infrared K-band images of 15 galaxies. We have performed a Fourier analysis on the spiral structure of these galaxies in order to determine their pitch angles and dust-penetrated arm classes. We have also obtained rotation curve data for these galaxies and calculated their shear rates. We show that there is a correlation between pitch angle and shear rate and conclude that the main determinant of pitch angle is the mass distribution within the galaxy. This correlation provides a physical basis for the dust-penetrated classification scheme of Block & Puerari (1999).

arXiv comment9 pages, 5 figures, to appear in proceeding to a conference entitled "Penetrating Bars Through Masks of Cosmic Dust: The Hubble Tuning Fork Strikes A New Note"

References in corpus (4)

• The structure of spiral galaxies - II. Near-infrared properties of spiral arms
• Uncovering Spiral Structure in Flocculent Galaxies
• Near-infrared constraints on the driving mechanisms for spiral structure
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