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Lopsidedness and sloshing in centres of advanced mergers of galaxies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2007

Chanda J. Jog
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India
Aparna Maybhate
Affiliation:
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218, U.S.A. email: cjjog@physics.iisc.ernet.in, maybhate@stsci.edu
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Abstract

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We measure the non-axisymmetry in the luminosity distribution in the central few kpc of a sample of advanced mergers of galaxies, by analyzing their 2MASS images. All mergers show a high central asymmetry: the centres of isophotes show a striking sloshing pattern with a spatial variation of upto 30% within the central 1 kpc; and the Fourier amplitude for lopsidedness (m = 1) shows high values upto 0.2 within the central 5 kpc. The central asymmetry is estimated to be long-lived, lasting for ~ a few Gyr or ~ 100 local dynamical timescales. This will significantly affect the dynamical evolution of this region, by helping fuel the central active galactic nucleus, and also by causing the secular growth of the bulge driven by lopsidedness.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2008

References

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