Infrared emission and tidal interactions of spiral galaxies

Book · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:5344861

Byrd, G G

Computer simulations of tidal interactions of spiral galaxies are used to attempt to understand recent discoveries about infrared (IR) emitting galaxies. It is found that the stronger tidal perturbation by a companion the more disk gas clouds are thrown into nucleus crossing orbits and the greater the velocity jumps crossing spiral arms. Both these tidally created characteristics would create more IR emission by high speed cloud collisions and more IR via effects of recently formed stars. This expectation at greater tidal perturbation matches the observation of greater IR emission for spiral galaxies with closer and/or more massive companions. The greater collision velocities found at stronger perturbations on the models will also result in higher dust temperature in the colliding clouds. In the IR pairs examined, most have only one member, the larger, detected and when both are detected, the larger is always the more luminous. In simulations and in a simple analytic description of the strong distance dependence of the tidal force, it is found that the big galaxy of a pair is more strongly affected than the small.

• Research Organization: Alabama Univ., Huntsville (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5344861
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640105* -- Astrophysics & Cosmology-- Galaxies
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COLLISIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
GALAXIES
INFRARED RADIATION
INTERACTIONS
LUMINOSITY
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIATIONS
SIMULATION