Bibcode
Falcón-Barroso, Jesús; Böker, Torsten; Schinnerer, Eva; Knapen, Johan H.; Ryder, Stuart
Referencia bibliográfica
Formation and Evolution of Galaxy Bulges, Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, IAU Symposium, Volume 245, p. 177-180
Fecha de publicación:
7
2008
Número de citas
5
Número de citas referidas
5
Descripción
We present near-infrared (H- and K-band) SINFONI integral-field
observations of the circumnuclear star formation rings in five nearby
spiral galaxies. We made use of the relative intensities of different
emission lines (i.e. [FeII], HeI, Brγ) to age date the stellar
clusters present along the rings. This qualitative, yet robust, method
allows us to discriminate between two distinct scenarios that describe
how star formation progresses along the rings. Our findings favour a
model where star formation is triggered predominantly at the
intersection between the bar major axis and the inner Lindblad resonance
and then passively evolves as the clusters rotate around the ring
(‘Pearls on a string’ scenario), although models of
stochastically distributed star formation (‘Popcorn’ model)
cannot be completely ruled out.