Dynamical modelling of a remarkable four-armed barred spiral galaxy ESO 566-24

Abstract

ESO 566-24 is an extraordinary barred galaxy, which has four regularly spaced spiral arms in blue light images. This type of four-armed spiral structure, which is rare among the spiral population, is clearly seen also in near-infrared images, and thus is present in the old stellar population. We have constructed dynamical models of ESO 566-24 in order to understand the cause of its four-armed structure. The disk gravitational potential is determined from near-infrared photometry, and the gas dynamics is modelled as inelastically colliding particles. The resulting morphology and kinematics with different assumed pattern speeds, disk vertical thicknesses and dark halo contributions is compared with observations. Our models can reproduce the main morphological features of this galaxy: the four-armed spiral, and the inner and nuclear rings. The pattern speed of the bar in this galaxy is such that the corotation resonance is well outside the bar radius, the resonance radius is 1.6 +/- 0.3 times the bar radius. The four-armed spiral resides in the region between inner and outer 4/1-resonances. Also, the main kinematical features, including bar-induced deviations from circular rotation, are explained by our models. The best fit is obtained when the dark halo contribution is just enough to make the modelled rotation curve match the observed one. This ``minimum halo'' is rather moderate: luminous matter dominates the rotation curve within the disk region.