Bibcode
DOI
Knapen, J. H.; Cepa, J.; Beckman, J. E.; Soledad del Rio, M.; Pedlar, Alan
Referencia bibliográfica
Astrophysical Journal v.416, p.563
Fecha de publicación:
10
1993
Número de citas
75
Número de citas referidas
66
Descripción
We present H I 21 cm observations of the grand design spiral galaxy NGC
4321, as obtained with the VLA. From our original data, we have obtained
data cubes with resolutions ranging from 13" to 45". The H I is observed
to break up into small condensations at high resolution. These
condensations, with typical masses of 3.3±0.7 ×
107 Msun, are not confined to the arm regions.
They may be unresolved at 15" resolution and thus may have physical
sizes smaller than 1 kpc. The total H I distribution is mostly confined
to the radius of the optical disk, but a large though faint extension is
seen in the H I data at 45" resolution on the SW side of the disk. NGC
4321 is asymmetric in H I and may be called "lopsided." We have derived
a rotation curve which agrees fairly well with what was previously
published but shows more detail due to the higher resolution of our new
observations. The rotation curve does not decline within the radius of
the disk, but important differences are seen between the behavior of the
approaching and the receding sides. These differences are caused by
deviations from circular motions in the outer disk that are probably due
to a close passage of the companion galaxy NGC 4322, which may also be
the cause of the observed asymmetry in the total H I distribution.
Deviations from circular motion due to density wave streaming are seen
in the inner disk. From skewing of the velocity contours in the central
part of NGC 4321, the presence of a nonaxisymmetric potential is
deduced. Near-infrared and Hα images indicate that a bar is indeed
present in this galaxy. The deviations from circular motions seen in the
velocity field can be identified with gas streaming around the bar in
elongated orbits, in broad agreement with theoretical predictions.