THE ODD OFFSET BETWEEN THE GALACTIC DISK AND ITS BAR IN NGC 3906
- South African Astronomical Observatory, Observatory, 7935 Cape Town (South Africa)
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory/NAASC, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, 475 North Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706 (United States)
- MMTO, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States)
- Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LAM (Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille) UMR 7326, F-13388 Marseille (France)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Box 870324, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 (United States)
- Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain)
- Division of Astronomy, Department of Physical Sciences, University of Oulu, Oulu, FI-90014 (Finland)
- European Southern Observatory, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19 (Chile)
- Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid E-28040 (Spain)
- Astronomy Department, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701 (South Africa)
- IBM Research Division, T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Hts., NY 10598 (United States)
- The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States)
We use mid-infrared 3.6 and 4.5 μm imaging of NGC 3906 from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S{sup 4}G) to understand the nature of an unusual offset between its stellar bar and the photometric center of an otherwise regular, circular outer stellar disk. We measure an offset of ∼910 pc between the center of the stellar bar and photometric center of the stellar disk; the bar center coincides with the kinematic center of the disk determined from previous HI observations. Although the undisturbed shape of the disk suggests that NGC 3906 has not undergone a significant merger event in its recent history, the most plausible explanation for the observed offset is an interaction. Given the relatively isolated nature of NGC 3906 this interaction could be with dark matter substructure in the galaxy's halo or from a recent interaction with a fast moving neighbor that remains to be identified. Simulations aimed at reproducing the observed offset between the stellar bar/kinematic center of the system and the photometric center of the disk are necessary to confirm this hypothesis and constrain the interaction history of the galaxy.
- OSTI ID:
- 22522125
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 808, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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