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Magnetic field as a tracer of sheared gas flow in barred galaxies

Nature volume 397, pages 324–327 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

Many spiral galaxies have stellar bars—an elongated region near the centre from which spiral arms emerge. Gas and stars in barred galaxies move on highly non-circular orbits. Models1,2,3,4,5 predict that the gas streamlines are strongly deflected along shock fronts in the bar region, and that the gas behind the shock is compressed. Dust lanes form in dense gas regions and it is believed that gas flows inward along these lanes to fuel bursts of star formation in a ring of dense molecular gas near the centre of the galaxy6,7. This inflow is difficult to measure observationally8,9,10. Magnetic fields are known to pervade the interstellar gas in all spiral galaxies11, but the relationship between such fields and the gas flow in barred galaxies has not hitherto been investigated. Here we report high-resolution radio observations of the magnetic fields in the barred galaxy NGC1097. We find a regular magnetic field in the bar and in the circumnuclear ring. The field in the bar is well aligned with the theoretical gas streamlines, and so appears to be a good tracer of the gas flow. The magnetic stress in the ring can drive mass inward at the rate needed to fuel the active nucleus of this galaxy.

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Figure 1: Radio maps of NGC1097.
Figure 2: The inner region of NGC1097.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by DFG, RFBR, PPARC and the University of Newcastle. We thank H. Arp, A. Barth and A. Quillen for providing optical images and for comments, E.M.Berkhuijsen, A. Brandenburg and D. Moss for discussions. We thank the NRAO for observation time and the VLA team for performing absentee observations. The ROSAT project is supported by the German Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Technologie and the Max-Planck Gesellschaft.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institut fr Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hgel 69, D-53121, Bonn, Germany

    R. Beck & V. Shoutenkov

  2. Max-Planck-Institut fr Extraterrestrische Physik, D-85740, Garching, Germany

    M. Ehle

  3. Pushchino Radioastronomy Observatory, Astro Space Center, 142292, Pushchino, Russia

    V. Shoutenkov

  4. Department of Mathematics, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    A. Shukurov & D. Sokoloff

  5. Department of Physics, Moscow State University, 119899, Moscow, Russia

    D. Sokoloff

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  1. R. Beck
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  4. A. Shukurov
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  5. D. Sokoloff
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Correspondence to R. Beck.

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Beck, R., Ehle, M., Shoutenkov, V. et al. Magnetic field as a tracer of sheared gas flow in barred galaxies. Nature 397, 324–327 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/16861

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