Bibcode
DOI
Balcells, Marc; González, Antonio César
Referencia bibliográfica
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 505, Issue 2, pp. L109-L112.
Fecha de publicación:
10
1998
Revista
Número de citas
33
Número de citas referidas
29
Descripción
We show that kinematically peculiar cores may be generated in stellar
spiral-spiral mergers. Kinematic segregation appears as the central
bulges transport orbital angular momentum inward to the center of the
remnant, while the outer parts keep the spin signature of the precursor
disks. The peculiar core is composed mostly of bulge material, and its
size best matches that of observed peculiar cores for mergers with
unequal galaxy masses (~2:1). Population decoupling is predicted by the
rapid radial decrease of the bulge fraction in the remnant. In this
scenario, a starburst may pump up the remnant metallicity, but otherwise
the high metallicity of the kinematically decoupled core is built on the
high metal content of the inner bulges rather than on a high
self-enrichment of a population built from scratch out of the
precursors' gas. Mergers with galaxy mass ratios 3:1 and above generate
disk galaxies with counterrotating bulges.