Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:41:57.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Probing the Tides in Interacting Galaxy Pairs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Kirk D. Borne
Kirk D. Borne*
Affiliation:
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Detailed spectroscopic and imaging observations of colliding elliptical galaxies have revealed unmistakable diagnostic signatures of the tidal interactions. It is possible to compare both the distorted luminosity distributions and the disturbed internal rotation profiles with numerical simulations in order to model the strength of the tidal gravitational field acting within a given pair of galaxies. Using the best-fit numerical model, one can then measure directly the mass of a specific interacting binary system. This technique applies to individual pairs and therefore complements the classical methods of measuring the masses of galaxy pairs in well-defined statistical samples. The “personalized” modeling of galaxy pairs also permits the derivation of each binary’s orbit, spatial orientation, and interaction timescale. Similarly, one can probe the tides in less-detailed observations of disturbed galaxies in order to estimate some of the physical parameters for larger samples of interacting galaxy pairs. These parameters are useful inputs to the more universal problems of (1) the galaxy merger rate, (2) the strength and duration of the driving forces behind tidally-stimulated phenomena (e.g., starbursts and maybe QSOs), and (3) the identification of long-lived signatures of interaction/merger events.

Type
VII. Classical Theory of Pairs
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 124: Paired and Interacting Galaxies , 1990 , pp. 537 - 542
Copyright
Copyright © NASA 1990

References

Balcells, M., Borne, K. D., and Hoessel, J. G. 1989a, Ap. J., 336 655.Google Scholar
Balcells, M., Borne, K. D., and Hoessel, J. G. 1989b, Ap. Space Sci., 156 215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borne, K. D. 1988a, Ap. J., 330 38.Google Scholar
Borne, K. D. 1988b, Ap. J., 330 61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borne, K. D. 1990, in Dynamics and Interactions of Galaxies, ed. Wielen, R. (Berlin: Springer), in press.Google Scholar
Borne, K. D., Balcells, M., and Hoessel, J. G. 1988, Ap. J., 333 567.Google Scholar
Borne, K. D., and Colina, L. 1990, Ap. J., submitted.Google Scholar
Borne, K. D., and Hoessel, J. G. 1988, Ap. J., 330 51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borne, K. D., and Richstone, D. O. 1990, Ap. J., submitted.Google Scholar
Hoessel, J. G., Borne, K. D., and Schneider, D. P. 1985, Ap. J., 293 94.Google Scholar
Karachentsev, I. D. 1972, Comm. Spec. Astrophys. Obs. USSR, 7, 3.Google Scholar
Kriss, G. A., Malumuth, E. M., and Borne, K. D. 1990, in preparation.Google Scholar
Pence, W., and Oegerle, W. 1989, Bull. AAS, 21, 1170.Google Scholar
Pence, W., Oegerle, W., and Borne, K. D. 1990, in preparation.Google Scholar
Schweizer, F. 1982, Ap. J., 252 455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar