The Morphology of Collisionless Galactic Rings Exterior to Evolving Bars

TL;DR

This study uses collisionless simulations to explore how evolving galactic bars influence the formation and morphology of outer rings in spiral galaxies, revealing that bar dynamics significantly affect ring structures.

Contribution

It demonstrates that outer rings can form without gas dissipation and links ring morphology to bar strength and pattern speed evolution, providing new insights into galactic structure formation.

Findings

Outer rings with R1R2 morphology can form in collisionless simulations.

Stronger bars lead to earlier and more rapid pseudoring formation.

Bar pattern speed and strength changes influence ring stability and shape.

Abstract

The morphology of the outer rings of early-type spiral galaxies is compared to integrations of massless collisionless particles initially in nearly circular orbits. Particles are perturbed by a quadrupolar gravitational potential corresponding to a growing and secularly evolving bar. We find that outer rings with R1R2 morphology and pseudorings are exhibited by the simulations even though they lack gaseous dissipation. Simulations with stronger bars form pseudorings earlier and more quickly than those with weaker bars. We find that the R1 ring, perpendicular to the bar, is fragile and dissolves after a few bar rotation periods if the bar pattern speed increases by more than ~ 8%, bar strength increases (by >~ 140%) after bar growth, or the bar is too strong (Q_T>0.3). If the bar slows down after formation, pseudoring morphology persists and the R2 ring perpendicular to the bar is populated due to resonance capture. The R2 ring remains misaligned with the bar and increases in ellipticity as the bar slows down. The R2 ring becomes scalloped and does not resemble any ringed galaxies if the bar slows down more than 3.5% suggesting that bars decrease in strength before they slow down this much. We compare the morphology of our simulations to B-band images of 9 ringed galaxies from the Ohio State University Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey, and we find a reasonable match in morphologies to R1R2' pseudorings seen within a few bar rotation periods of bar formation. Some of the features previously interpreted in terms of dissipative models may be due to transient structure associated with recent bar growth and evolution.