Bibcode
DOI
Buta, R.; Block, D. L.; Knapen, J. H.
Bibliographical reference
The Astronomical Journal, Volume 126, Issue 3, pp. 1148-1158.
Advertised on:
9
2003
Citations
55
Refereed citations
46
Description
We describe a Fourier-based method of separating bars from spirals in
near-infrared images. The method takes advantage of the fact that a bar
is typically a feature with a relatively fixed position angle and uses
the simple assumption that the relative Fourier amplitudes due to the
bar decline with radius past a maximum in the same or a similar manner
as they rose to that maximum. With such an assumption, the bar can be
extrapolated into the spiral region and removed from an image, leaving
just the spiral and the axisymmetric background disk light. We refer to
such a bar-subtracted image as the ``spiral plus disk'' image. The
axisymmetric background (Fourier index m=0 image) can then be added back
to the bar image to give the ``bar plus disk'' image. The procedure
allows us to estimate the maximum gravitational torque per unit mass per
unit square of the circular speed for the bar and spiral forcing
separately, parameters that quantitatively define the bar strength
Qb and the spiral strength Qs following the recent
study of Buta & Block. For the first time, we are able to measure
the torques generated by spiral arms alone, and we can now define spiral
torque classes, in the same manner as bar torque classes are delineated.
We outline the complete procedure here using a 2.1 μm image of NGC
6951, a prototypical SAB(rs)bc spiral having an absolute blue magnitude
of -21 and a maximum rotation velocity of 230 km s-1.
Comparison between a rotation curve predicted from the m=0 near-infrared
light distribution and an observed rotation curve suggests that NGC 6951
is maximum disk in its bar and main spiral region, implying that our
assumption of a constant mass-to-light ratio in our analysis is probably
reliable. We justify our assumption on how to make the bar extrapolation
using an analysis of NGC 4394, a barred spiral with only weak
near-infrared spiral structure, and we justify the number of needed
Fourier terms using NGC 1530, one of the most strongly barred galaxies
(bar class 7) known. We also evaluate the main uncertainties in the
technique. Allowing for uncertainties in vertical scale height, bar
extrapolation, sky subtraction, orientation parameters, and the
asymmetry in the spiral arms themselves, we estimate
Qb=0.28+/-0.04 and Qs=0.21+/-0.06 for NGC 6951.