Bibcode
Erwin, Peter; Vega Beltrán, Juan Carlos; Beckman, John; Sparke, Linda S.
Bibliographical reference
The Central Kiloparsec of Starbursts and AGN: The La Palma Connection, ASP Conference Proceedings Vol. 249. Edited by J. H. Knapen, J. E. Beckman, I. Shlosman, and T. J. Mahoney. ISBN: 1-58381-089-7. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2001, p. 85.
Advertised on:
0
2001
Citations
6
Refereed citations
4
Description
We present results of a high-resolution imaging survey of barred S0--Sa
galaxies which demonstrate that the central regions of these galaxies
are surprisingly complex. We see many inner bars---small, secondary bars
(typically less than a kiloparsec in radius) located inside of, and
probably rotating faster than, the large primary bars. These are present
in about one quarter to one third of all our sample. In contrast to some
theoretical expectations, they do not seem to enhance AGN activity
significantly. A third of barred S0s appear to host kiloparsec-scale
disks within their bars; but the frequency of such inner disks is much
lower in our S0/a and Sa galaxies. In addition, we find one example of a
triple-barred galaxy, and two cases of purely stellar nuclear
rings---probably the fossil remnants of past circumnuclear starbursts.
We comment briefly on results from an ongoing analysis of known
double-barred systems, extending to Hubble types as late as Sbc, and
discuss their characteristic sizes and orientations.