NRAO/Socorro Colloquium Series

Linda Sparke

University of Wisconsin


Bars in Bars and Rings Round Stars


High-resolution optical and near-infrared images of the centers of barred galaxies often show smaller, secondary bars within the main bar. A recent survey of 38 barred S0 and Sa galaxies shows bars-inside-bars to be surprisingly common: at least one quarter of the sample is double-barred. Some galaxies also show kiloparsec-scale inner disks, and nuclear rings. These central stellar structures suggest that the inner regions of early-type barred galaxies can be dynamically cool and disklike. The inner bars appear randomly oriented with respect to the main outer bar, suggesting that the two rotate independently. How would the stars and gas orbit in a periodically-changing gravitational potential? I will discuss how one can characterize orbits in the double-bar system, and also show how the technique can be used to find the shapes and boundaries of circumstellar and circumbinary disks in an arbitrarily eccentric binary system.






19 January 2007
11:00 a.m. MT

Array Operations Center Auditorium

All NRAO employees are invited to attend via video, available in Charlottesville Room 230, Green Bank Room 137 and Tucson N525.

Local Host: Gustaaf van Moorsel