Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Kinematic Signature Of A Rotating Bar Near A Resonance, Md Weinberg

Astronomy Department Faculty Publication Series

There have been several recent suggestions that the Milky Way has rotating bar-like features based on HI and star count data. In this paper, I show that such features cause distinctive stellar kinematic signatures near OLR and ILR. The effects of these resonances may be observable far from the peak density of the pattern and relatively nearby the solar position. The details of the kinematic signatures depend on the evolutionary history of the ‘bar’ and therefore velocity data, both systemic and velocity dispersion, may be used to probe the evolutionary history as well as the present state of the Galaxy. …