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Nested Bars In Disk Galaxies : No Offset Dust Lanes In Secondary Nuclear Bars, Isaac Shlosman, Clayton Heller

Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Under certain conditions, subkiloparsec nuclear bars form inside large-scale stellar bars of disk galaxies. These secondary bars spend a fraction of their lifetime in a dynamically decoupled state, tumbling in the gravitational field of the outer bars. We analyze the flow pattern in such nested-bar systems under the conditions of negligible self-gravity and find that secondary bars differ fundamentally from their large-scale counterparts in gas flow pattern and other dynamical properties. In particular, the gas flow across the bar-bar interface in these systems can be more chaotic or more regular in nature and, contrary to predictions, has no difficulty in …