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Fission of a Massive Elongated Gas Cloud Rotating at the Galactic Center

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2017

M Fujimoto
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Nagoya University Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-01
Y Tatematsu
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Nagoya University Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-01

Abstract

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A uniform gaseous ellipsoid in external force field is applied as a dynamical model for massive gas cloud rotating at the galactic center of deep gravitational potential. An initially oblate ellipsoid elongates and rotates end-over-end when its contraction proceeds and the gas density becomes more than twenty times as large as the background matter density. A condition for third-order (pear-shaped) deformation of the gaseous cloud is easily satisfied, suggesting its split into two parts, separated on diametrically opposite sides of the center. Numerical simulations were made to confirm the fission: The two symmetric peaks observed in the 12CO (J=1−0) gas cloud on the galactic center (IC342, NGC6946, and Maffei 2) seem to be the result of the elongation and subsequent fission of a massive (107 to 108M⊙) high-density (102 to 103 H2cm−3) gas cloud accreted onto the galactic center.

Type
VIII- Bars, Rings and Starbursts
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1991 

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