Bibcode
Erwin, Peter; Vega Beltrán, Juan Carlos; Beckman, John E.
Bibliographical reference
The Central Kiloparsec of Starbursts and AGN: The La Palma Connection, ASP Conference Proceedings Vol. 249. Edited by J. H. Knapen, J. E. Beckman, I. Shlosman, and T. J. Mahoney. ISBN: 1-58381-089-7. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2001, p. 171.
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0
2001
Citations
11
Refereed citations
10
Description
We have found four barred S0 galaxies---NGC 936, NGC 3945, NGC 4340, and
NGC 4371---which contain smooth, luminous, purely stellar nuclear rings
within their bars. These rings have little or no dust, no evidence for
recent star formation, and are approximately the same color as the
surrounding bar and bulge. Thus, they are probably the aged remnants of
bar-driven circumnuclear starburst episodes similar to those seen in
barred galaxies today. Using kinematic data from long-slit spectroscopy,
we construct rotation and resonance curves for two of the galaxies. In
both cases, the nuclear rings appear to be located near or at the inner
inner Lindblad resonances of the large-scale bars. We also discuss the
difficulties inherent in detecting and identifying such rings, and show
some of the surprising ways in which stellar rings can distort galaxy
isophotes and ellipse fits.