Bibcode
Comerón, S.; Knapen, J. H.; Beckman, J. E.; Laurikainen, E.; Salo, H.; Buta, R. J.; Martínez-Valpuesta, I.
Referencia bibliográfica
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #381.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.592
Fecha de publicación:
1
2010
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
Nuclear rings are in most cases thought to be by-products of gas
shock-focusing at Inner Lindblad Resonances (ILRs). AINUR (Atlas of
Images of NUclear Rings) is an Atlas which includes images and metric
measurements of all 109 known nuclear rings. This Atlas has been
produced by checking and processing Hubble Space Telescope archive data
from a complete sample of 488 galaxies. We made structure maps, Halpha
and Paschen alpha continuum-subtracted images, and color-index maps in
order to detect as many nuclear rings as possible. A few more nuclear
rings have been added from a literature search. The 109 nuclear rings
are found in 103 galaxies, six of which are elliptical galaxies, five
are highly inclined disc galaxies, 17 are unbarred disc galaxies and 75
are barred disc galaxies.
We find that dust nuclear rings are found in 6+-2% of elliptical
galaxies and that star-forming nuclear rings occur in 19+-% of the disc
galaxies with types ranging from T=-3 to T=7. The peak of the
star-forming nuclear ring distribution is found between Sab and Sb. The
star-forming nuclear ring ellipticities are between 0 and 0.4 assuming
that the rings lie in the same plane as the galaxy disc. The maximum
possible radius for a nuclear ring in a barred galaxy is a quarter of
the bar length. We find that the maximum possible relative size of a
star-forming nuclear ring is inversely proportional to the
non-axisymmetric torque parameter (``stronger bars host smaller rings'')
and that the origin of nuclear rings, even the ones in non-barred hosts,
is closely linked to the existence of dynamical resonances. We discuss
implications for the lifetimes of nuclear rings and for the evolution of
both the rings and their host galaxies.
Support by Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia and Instituto de
Astrofisica de Canarias is acknowledged.