Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 461, Issue 4, Pages 3663-3682Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw1588
Keywords
methods: data analysis; galaxies: formation; galaxies: general; galaxies: spiral; galaxies: structure
Categories
Funding
- Science and Technology Funding Council
- Alfred P. Sloan foundation
- Leverhulme Trust
- National Science Foundation
- US Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- Higher Education Funding Council for England
- American Museum of Natural History
- Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
- University of Basel
- University of Cambridge
- Case Western Reserve University
- University of Chicago
- Drexel University
- Fermilab
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Japan Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Korean Scientist Group
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA)
- Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA)
- New Mexico State University
- Ohio State University
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- United States Naval Observatory
- University of Washington
- STFC [ST/L000695/1, ST/N000668/1, ST/K00090X/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/N000668/1, ST/K00090X/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1413610] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The majority of galaxies in the local Universe exhibit spiral structure with a variety of forms. Many galaxies possess two prominent spiral arms, some have more, while others display a many-armed flocculent appearance. Spiral arms are associated with enhanced gas content and star formation in the discs of low-redshift galaxies, so are important in the understanding of star formation in the local universe. As both the visual appearance of spiral structure, and the mechanisms responsible for it vary from galaxy to galaxy, a reliable method for defining spiral samples with different visual morphologies is required. In this paper, we develop a new debiasing method to reliably correct for redshift-dependent bias in Galaxy Zoo 2, and release the new set of debiased classifications. Using these, a luminosity-limited sample of similar to 18 000 Sloan Digital Sky Survey spiral galaxies is defined, which are then further sub-categorized by spiral arm number. In order to explore how different spiral galaxies form, the demographics of spiral galaxies with different spiral arm numbers are compared. It is found that whilst all spiral galaxies occupy similar ranges of stellar mass and environment, many-armed galaxies display much bluer colours than their two-armed counterparts. We conclude that two-armed structure is ubiquitous in star-forming discs, whereas many-armed spiral structure appears to be a short-lived phase, associated with more recent, stochastic star-formation activity.
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