Fathi, Kambiz; Beckman, John E.; Lundgren, Andreas A.; Carignan, Claude; Hernandez, Olivier; Amram, Philippe; Balard, Philippe; Boulesteix, Jacques; Gach, Jean-Luc; Knapen, Johan H.; Relaño, Monica
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 675, Issue 1, pp. L17-L20.
Description
We present observations of the nearby barred starburst galaxy M83 (NGC
5236), with the new Fabry-Perot interferometer GHαFaS mounted on
the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope on La Palma. The unprecedented
high-resolution observations, of 16 pc FWHM-1, of the
Hα-emitting gas cover the central 2 kpc of the galaxy. The
velocity field displays the dominant disk rotation with signatures of
gas inflow from kpc scales down to the nuclear regions. At the inner
inner Lindblad resonance radius of the main bar and centered at the
dynamical center of the main galaxy disk, a nuclear (5.5 +/- 0.9)
× 108 Msolar rapidly rotating disk with
scale length of 60+/-20 pc has formed. The nuclear starburst is found in
the vicinity as well as inside this nuclear disk, and our observations
confirm that gas spirals in from the outer parts to feed the nuclear
starburst, giving rise to several star formation events at different
epochs, within the central 100 pc radius of M83.
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The basic objective of the broject is to investigate the evolution of galaxies by deepening our understanding of the interaction between the insterstellar medium and the stars.The main technique which we use is the two-dimensional kinematic study of whole galaxies observed using our instrument:GHaFaS, a Fabry-Perot interferometer on the William
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Johan Hendrik
Knapen Koelstra
