Gasflows in Barred Galaxies with Big Orbital Loops-A Comparative Study of Two Hydrocodes

TL;DR

This study compares gas flow dynamics in barred galaxies with large orbital loops using two hydrodynamic simulation methods, revealing how these loops influence shock formation and gas streaming patterns.

Contribution

It introduces a comparative analysis of gas dynamics in barred galaxies with large orbital loops using both SPH and RAMSES codes, highlighting differences in shock morphology.

Findings

Big orbital loops do not bring shocks closer to corotation.

Loops cause shocks to deviate and form extensions at angles.

Dense gas tails stream towards straight-line shocks.

Abstract

We study the flow of gas in a barred-galaxy model, in which a considerable part of the underlying stable periodic orbits have loops where, close to the ends of the bar, several orbital families coexist and chaos dominates. Such conditions are typically encountered in a zone between the 4:1 resonance and corotation. The purpose of our study is to understand the gaseous flow in the aforementioned environment and trace the morphology of the shocks that form. We use two conceptually different hydrodynamic schemes for our calculations, namely, the mesh-free Lagrangian SPH method and the adaptive mesh refinement code RAMSES. This allows us to compare responses by means of the two algorithms. We find that the big loops of the orbits, mainly belonging to the x1 stable periodic orbits, do not help the shock loci to approach corotation. They deviate away from the regions occupied by the loops, bypass them and form extensions at an angle with the straight-line shocks. Roughly at the distance from the center at which we start to observe the big loops, we find characteristic "tails" of dense gas streaming towards the straight-line shocks. The two codes give complementary information for understanding the hydrodynamics of the models.