Shigeki Inoue, Takayuki R. Saitoh
Bulges in spiral galaxies have been supposed to be classified into two types:
classical bulges or pseudobulges. Classical bulges are thought to form by
galactic merger with bursty star formation, whereas pseudobulges are suggested
to form by secular evolution due to spiral arms and a barred structure
funneling gas into the galactic centre. Noguchi (1998,1999) suggested another
bulge formation scenario, `clump-origin bulge'. He demonstrated using a
numerical simulation that a galactic disc suffers dynamical instability to form
clumpy structures in the early stage of disc formation since the premature disc
is expected to be highly gas-rich, then the clumps are sucked into the galactic
centre by dynamical friction and merge into a single bulge at the centre. This
bulge formation scenario, which is expected to happen only at the
high-redshift, is different from the galactic merger and the secular evolution.
Therefore, clump-origin bulges may have their own unique properties. We perform
a high-resolution N-body/smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation for
the formation of the clump-origin bulge in an isolated galaxy model and study
dynamical and chemical properties of the clump-origin bulge. We find that the
clump-origin bulge resembles pseudobulges in dynamical properties, a nearly
exponential surface density profile, a barred boxy shape and a significant
rotation. We also find that this bulge consists of old and metal-rich stars,
displaying resemblance to classical bulges. These natures, old metal-rich
population but pseudobulge-like structures, mean that the clump-origin bulge
can not be simply classified into classical bulges nor pseudobulges. From these
results, we discuss similarities of the clump-origin bulge to the Milky Way
bulge.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.2898
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