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On the Formation of Spiral Arms in Dwarf Galaxies

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Abstract

Spiral structure (both flocculent and Grand Design types) is very rarely observed in dwarf galaxies because the formation of spiral arms requires special conditions. In this work we analyze the sample of about 40 dS-galaxies found by scanning by eye the images of late-type galaxies with \({{m}_{B}} < {{15}^{m}}\) and \({{M}_{B}} > - {{18}^{m}}\) and photometric diameter \({{D}_{{25}}} < 12\) kpc. We found that apart from the lower average gas (HI) fraction the other properties of dS-galaxies including the presence of a bar and the isolation index do not differ much from those for dwarf Irr or Sm-types of similar luminosity and rotation velocity (or specific angular momentum).There are practically no dS-galaxies with rotation velocity below 50–60 km s–1. To check the conditions of formation of spiral structure in dwarf galaxies we carried out a series of N-body/hydrodynamic simulations of low-mass stellar-gaseous discy galaxies by varying the model kinematic parameters of discs, their initial thickness, relative masses and scale lengths of stellar and gaseous disc components, and stellar-to-dark halo masses. We came to conclusion that the gravitational mechanism of spiral structure formation is effective only for thin stellar discs, which are non-typical for dwarf galaxies, and for not too slowly rotating galaxies. Therefore, only a small fraction of dwarf galaxies with stellar/gaseous discs have spiral or ring structures. The thicker stellar disc, the more gas is required for the spiral structure to form. The reduced gas content in many dS-galaxies compared to non-spiral ones may be a result of more efficient star formation due to a higher volume gas density thank to the thinner stellar/gaseous discs.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank the antonymous referee for fruitful remarks. Numerical calculations were carried by using the  equipment of the shared research facilities of HPC computing resources at Volgograd State University. We acknowledge the usage of the HyperLeda database (http://leda.univ-lyon1.fr).

The Legacy Surveys consist of three individual and complementary projects: the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS; NOAO Proposal ID 2014B-0404; PIs: David Schlegel and Arjun Dey), the Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey (BASS; NOAO Proposal ID 2015A-0801; PIs: Zhou Xu and Xiaohui Fan), and the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey (MzLS; NOAO Proposal ID 2016A-0453; PI: Arjun Dey). DECaLS, BASS and MzLS together include data obtained, respectively, at the Blanco telescope, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO); the Bok telescope, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona; and the Mayall telescope, Kitt Peak National Observatory, NOAO. The Legacy Surveys project is honored to be permitted to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Funding

NZ was supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 20-02-00080 A). AZ and NZ are grateful the Program of development of M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Leading Scientific School ‘Physics of stars, relativistic objects and galaxies’) for the financial support. AVK and SSK are grateful the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (government task no. 0633-2020-0003, all results of numerical simulations of galaxies dynamics in Section 4).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow, Russia

    A. V. Zasov

  2. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Physics, Moscow, Russia

    A. V. Zasov & N. A. Zaitseva

  3. Volgograd State University, Volgograd, Russia

    A. V. Khoperskov & S. S. Khrapov

  4. Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science, Nizhnij Arkhyz, Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Russia

    N. A. Zaitseva

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  1. A. V. Zasov
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  2. A. V. Khoperskov
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  3. N. A. Zaitseva
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  4. S. S. Khrapov
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Correspondence to A. V. Zasov or A. V. Khoperskov.

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Zasov, A.V., Khoperskov, A.V., Zaitseva, N.A. et al. On the Formation of Spiral Arms in Dwarf Galaxies. Astron. Rep. 65, 1215–1232 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S106377292112009X

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