Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 706, Issue 1, Pages 471-481Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/706/1/471
Keywords
galaxies: kinematics and dynamics; galaxies: spiral; galaxies: structure; Galaxy: kinematics and dynamics; Galaxy: structure; ISM: kinematics and dynamics; ISM: structure; masers; methods: numerical
Categories
Funding
- Molecular-Based New Computational Science Program, NINS
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Recent Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) observations determined the distances and proper motions of star-forming regions in spiral arms directly. They showed that star-forming regions and young stars have large peculiar motions as large as 30 km s(-1) with complex structures. Such a large peculiar motion is incompatible with the prediction of the standard theory of quasi-stationary spiral arms. We use a high-resolution, self-consistent N-body+hydrodynamical simulation to explore how the spiral arms are formed and maintained, and how star-forming regions move. We found that arms are not quasi-stationary but transient and recurrent, as suggested in alternative theories of spiral structures. Because of this transient nature of the spiral arms, star-forming regions exhibit a trend of large and complex non-circular motions, which is qualitatively consistent with the VLBI observations. Owing to this large non-circular motion, a kinematically estimated gas map of our Galaxy has large systematic errors of similar to 2-3 kpc in the distance from the Sun.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available