Toward a dust penetrated classification of the evolved stellar Population II disks of galaxies

dc.creatorBlock, David L.
dc.creatorPuerari, Ivanio
dc.date1998-11-03
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T02:28:54Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T02:28:54Z
dc.description(abridged): To derive a coherent physical framework for the excitation of spiral structure in galaxies, one must consider the co-existence of two different dynamical components: a gas-dominated Population I disk (OB associations, HII regions, cold interstellar HI gas) and an evolved stellar Population II component. The Hubble classification scheme has as its focus, the morphology of the Population I component only. In the near-infrared, the morphology of evolved stellar disks indicates a simple classification scheme: the dominant Fourier m-mode in the dust penetrated regime, and the associated pitch angle. On the basis of deprojected K$'$ (2.1$μm$) images, we propose that the evolved stellar disks may be grouped into three principal dust penetrated archetypes: those with tightly wound stellar arms characterised by pitch angles at K$'$ of $\sim$ 10$^{\circ}$ (the $α$ class), an intermediate group with pitch angles of $\sim$ 25$^{\circ}$ (the $β$ class) and thirdly, those with open spirals demarcated by pitch angles at K$'$ of $\sim$ 40$^{\circ}$ (the $γ$ bin). Both optically flocculent or grand design galaxies can reside within the {\it same} dust penetrated morphological bin. Any specific dust penetrated archetype may be the resident disk of {\it both} an early or late type galaxy in the optical regime. There is no correlation between our dust penetrated classes and optical Hubble binning; the Hubble tuning fork does not constrain the morphology of the old stellar Population II disks.
dc.description18 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics (Main Journal). Figure 8 can be find at http://www.inaoep.mx/~puerari/CLASSIF
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9811060
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9811060
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/13260
dc.subjectAstrophysics
dc.titleToward a dust penetrated classification of the evolved stellar Population II disks of galaxies
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