Supershells as probe particles for the study of the galactic spin orientation

Silich, S. A.; Mashchenko, S. Ya.; Tenorio-Tagle, G.; Franco, J.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 280, Issue 3, pp. 711-719.

Advertised on:
6
1996
Number of authors
4
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
8
Refereed citations
5
Description
Here we describe a method that can be used to derive, with a high degree of confidence, the direction of the rotation axis of a galaxy. The method is based on the deformation, caused by differential galactic rotation, of the remnants produced by multi-supernova explosions. We consider two realistic extreme sets of galactic boundary conditions, and assume a large number of possible locations and energetics of the exciting OB associations, for our time-dependent 3D calculations. We define the zones where the observation of large-scale multi-supernova remnants, for all possible galactic inclination angles, could help to determine the direction of galaxy rotation. The method is applied to the dwarf irregular Holmberg II (HoII) and to the spiral M31.