arXiv subjects

Keiichi Wada

Publications and source records attributed to Keiichi Wada.

87 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2003

Tsunamis in Galaxy Clusters: Heating of Cool Cores by Acoustic Waves

Using an analytical model and numerical simulations, we show that acoustic waves generated by turbulent motion in intracluster medium effectively heat the central region of a so-called ``cooling flow'' cluster. We assume that the turbulence is generated by substructure motion in a cluster or cluster mergers. Our analytical model can reproduce observed density and temperature profiles of a few clusters. We also show that waves can transfer more energy from the outer region of a cluster than thermal conduction alone. Numerical simulations generally support the results of the analytical study.

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arXiv2003

Fueling Gas to the Central Region of Galaxies

Supplying gas to the galactic central regions is one of key ingredients for AGN activity. I will review various fueling mechanisms for a R ~ 1 kpc region, determined mainly by numerical simulations over the last decade. I will also comment on the bars-within-bars mechanism. Observations suggest that the stellar bar is not a sufficient condition for gas fueling. Moreover, considering the various factors for the onset of gas accretion, stellar bars would not even be a necessary condition. I introduce recent progress obtained through our two- and three-dimensional, high resolution hydrodynamical simulations of the ISM in the central 0.1--1 kpc region of galaxies. Possible structure of the obscuring molecular tori around AGNs is also shown. The nuclear starburst is an important factor in determining the structure of the molecular tori and the mass accretion rate to the nucleus. It is natural that the ISM in the central 100 pc region is a highly inhomogeneous and turbulent structure. As a result, gas accretion to the central parsec region should be time dependent and stochastic. The conventional picture of gas fueling and the AGN unified model may be modified in many respects.

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arXiv2002

Intrinsic errors of the central galactic mass derived from rotation curves under the influence of a weak non-axisymmetric potential

Rotation curves are often used to estimate the mass distribution of spiral galaxies, assuming circular rotation of disks. However, non-circular motions caused by a non-axisymmetric gravitational potential, such as a stellar bar, may disturb the velocity field, resulting in errors in mass estimation, especially in the central regions of galaxies, because the line-of-sight velocity depends on the viewing angles in a non-axisymmetric flow. Observing rotation curves of edge-on galaxies in time-dependent numerical simulations from different viewing angles, we obtain errors in the estimation of galactic mass from the rotation curves. In the most extreme case, the ellipticity of gas orbits is as high as 0.8 in the central regions, even if the bar potential is weak. When rotation curves are defined as the highest velocity envelope of position-velocity diagrams, the mass estimated from the rotation curves is larger than the true mass by a factor of five for 15% of the viewing angles, and the ratio between the apparent mass and true mass is less than six for any viewing angle. The overestimation in mass occurs more frequently than the underestimation.

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arXiv2002

Gravity-driven Turbulence in Galactic Disks

High-resolution, 2-D hydrodynamical simulations with a large dynamic range are performed to study the turbulent nature of the interstellar medium (ISM) in galactic disks. The simulations are global, where the self-gravity of the ISM, realistic radiative cooling, and galactic rotation are taken into account. In the analysis undertaken here, feedback processes from stellar energy source are omitted. We find that the velocity field of the disk in a non-linear phase shows a steady power-law energy spectrum over three-orders of magnitude in wave number. This implies that the random velocity field can be modeled as fully-developed, stationary turbulence. Gravitational and thermal instabilities under the influence of galactic rotation contribute to form the turbulent velocity field. The Toomre effective Q value, in the non-linear phase, ranges over a wide range, and gravitationally stable and unstable regions are distributed patchily in the disk. These results suggest that large-scale galactic rotation coupled with the self-gravity of the gas can be the ultimate energy sources that maintain the turbulence in the local ISM. We find that our models of turbulent rotating disks are consistent with the velocity dispersion of an extended HI disk in the dwarf galaxy, NGC 2915, where there is no prominent active star formation. Numerical simulations show that the stellar bar in NGC 2915 enhances the velocity dispersion, and it also drives spiral arms as observed in the HI disk.

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arXiv2002

Obscuring Material around Seyfert Nuclei with Starbursts

The structure of obscuring matter in the environment of active galactic nuclei with associated nuclear starbursts is investigated using 3-D hydrodynamical simulations. Simple analytical estimates suggest that the obscuring matter with energy feedback from supernovae has a torus-like structure with a radius of several tens of parsecs and a scale height of about 10 pc. These estimates are confirmed by the fully non-linear numerical simulations, in which the multi-phase inhomogeneous interstellar matter and its interaction with the supernovae are consistently followed. The globally stable, torus-like structure is highly inhomogeneous and turbulent. To achieve the high column densities (> 10^{24} cm^{-2}) as suggested by observations of some Seyfert 2 galaxies with nuclear starbursts, the viewing angle should be larger than about 70 degree from the pole-on for a 10^8 solar mass massive black hole. Due to the inhomogeneous internal structure of the torus, the observed column density is sensitive to the line-of-sight, and it fluctuates by a factor of order 100. The covering fraction for N > 10^{23} cm^{-2} is about 0.4. The average accretion rate toward R < 1 pc is 0.4 solar mass/yr, which is boosted to twice that in the model without the energy feedback.

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arXiv2001

The Three-Dimensional Structure of a Massive Gas Disk in the Galactic Central Region

Using high-resolution, three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations, we investigate the structure of the interstellar medium in the central hundred pc region in galaxies, taking into account self-gravity of the gas, radiative cooling from 10 K to $10^8$ K, and energy feedback from supernovae. Similar to the previous two-dimensional results produced by Wada and Norman, we find that a gravitationally and thermally unstable ISM evolves, in a self-stabilizing manner, into a quasi-stable thin disk, which is characterized by a network of cold ($T < 100$ K), dense clumps and filaments, and hot ($T > 10^6$ K), diffuse medium. Supernova explosions blow the diffuse gases from the disk, and as a result, a quasi-steady diffuse halo, which is not uniform but has a plume-like structure, is formed. The density probability distribution function (PDF) in a quasi-steady state is well fitted by a Log-Normal function over about seven orders of magnitude.

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arXiv2001

Millimetric Observations of the Center of M81 : A Starved Nucleus with Intraday Variability

The central kiloparsec of M81 has been observed in the CO(J=1-0) line and the 3 mm continuum at 100 pc resolution in an attempt to probe molecular gas, and to search for the nuclear inner Lindblad resonance (NILR), around the low-luminosity AGN M81*. We found the following. (1) Molecular gas in the central kpc is mainly on a ``pseudoring'' or a spiral arm at a radius of about 500 pc. (2) The region within ~300 pc from the nucleus is mostly devoid of molecular gas except for diffuse one; in particular, there is neither a giant molecular cloud that is now accreting on the nucleus nor a conspicuous gas feature that can be identified as an NILR. (3) The 3 mm continuum emission shows significant intraday variation, suggesting an emitting region of ~100 AU. (4) The 3-sigma upper limit for CO absorption toward the continuum source is tau_CO(0->1) dV < 0.1 for a linewidth of 10 km/s. The dearth of accreting molecular gas in the vicinity of the nucleus may explain the low luminosity of M81*.

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arXiv2000

Formation of Cavities, Filaments, and Clumps by the Non-linear Development of Thermal and Gravitational Instabilities in the Interstellar Medium under Stellar Feedback

Based on our high resolution, two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations, we propose that large cavities may be formed by the nonlinear development of the combined thermal and gravitational instabilities, without need for stellar energy injection in a galaxy modeling the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC). Our numerical model of the star formation allows us to follow the evolution of the blastwaves due to supernovae in the inhomogeous, multi-phase, and turbulent-like media self-consistently. Formation of kpc-scale inhomogeneity, such as cavities, observed HI map of the LMC, is suppressed by frequent supernovae (average supernova rate for the whole disk is ~0.001/yr). However the supernova explosions are necessary for the hot component (T_g > 10^{6-7} K). Position-velocity maps show that kpc-scale shells/arcs formed through the nonlinear evolution in a model without stellar energy feedback has similar kinematics to explosional phenomena, such as supernovae. We also find that dense clumps and filamentary structure are formed due to a natural consequence of the non-linear evolution of the multi-phage ISM. Although the ISM in a small scale looks turbulent-like and transient, the global structure of the ISM is quasi-stable. We compare the observations of HI and molecular gas of the LMC with the numerically obtained HI and CO map. The morphology and statistical properties of the numerical HI and CO maps are discussed.

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arXiv2000

A Unified Scaling Law in Spiral Galaxies

We investigate the origin of a unified scaling relation in spiral galaxies. Observed spiral galaxies are spread on a plane in the three-dimensionallogarithmic space of luminosity L, radius R and rotation velocity V. The plane is expressed as $L \propto (V R)^α$ in I-passband, where $α$ is a constant. On the plane, observed galaxies are distributed in an elongated region which looks like the shape of a surfboard. The well-known scaling relations, L-V (Tully-Fisher relation), V-R (also the Tully-Fisher relation) and R-L (Freeman's law), can be understood as oblique projections of the surfboard-like plane into 2-D spaces. This unified interpretation of the known scaling relations should be a clue to understand the physical origin of all the relations consistently. Furthermore, this interpretation can also explain why previous studies could not find any correlation between TF residuals and radius. In order to clarify the origin of this plane, we simulate formation and evolution of spiral galaxies with the N-body/SPH method, including cooling, star formation and stellar feedback. Initial conditions are set to isolated 14 spheres with two free parameters, such as mass and angular momentum. The CDM (h=0.5, $Ω_0=1$) cosmology is considered as a test case. The simulations provide the following two conclusions: (a) The slope of the plane is well reproduced but the zero-point is not. This zero-point discrepancy could be solved in a low density ($Ω_0<1$) and high expansion (h>0.5) cosmology. (b) The surfboard-shaped plane can be explained by the control of galactic mass and angular momentum.

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arXiv1999

The Global Structure and Evolution of a Self-Gravitating Multi-phase Interstellar Medium in a Galactic Disk

Using high resolution, two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations, we investigate the evolution of a self-gravitating multi-phase interstellar medium in the central kiloparsec region of a galactic disk. We find that a gravitationally and thermally unstable disk evolves, in a self-stabilizing manner, into a globally quasi-stable disk that consists of cold (T < 100 K), dense clumps and filaments surrounded by hot (T > 10^4 K), diffuse medium. The quasi-stationary, filamentary structure of the cold gas is remarkable. The hot gas, characterized by low-density holes and voids, is produced by shock heating. The shocks derive their energy from differential rotation and gravitational perturbations due to the formation of cold dense clumps. In the quasi-stable phase where cold and dense clouds are formed, the effective stability parameter, Q, has a value in the range 2-5. The dynamic range of our multi-phase calculations is 10^6 - 10^7 in both density and temperature. Phase diagrams for this turbulent medium are analyzed and discussed.

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arXiv1998

The Effect of Self-gravity of Gas on Gas Fueling in Barred Galaxies with a Supermassive Black Hole

In our previous paper, we have shown that a gas disk in the nuclear region of a barred galaxy which contains a central supermassive black hole (SMBH) rapidly evolves into a nuclear gas ring by the effect of an additional inner Lindblad resonance caused by the SMBH. In this paper, we investigate the fate of the gas ring, involving self-gravity of gas, using two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. We find that the gas ring becomes gravitationally unstable for a gas surface density of gas above a critical value, and fragments into several gas clumps. Some denser clumps increase their mass via the accretion of the surrounding gas and collisions with other clumps, and finally a very massive gas clump (10^7 M_sun) is formed. Due to the torque from the most massive clump, a part of the gas in the ring loses its angular momentum and falls into the galactic center. As a result, a nuclear gas disk (50 pc) is formed around the SMBH. The accretion rate for $R<50$ pc attains about 1 M_sun/yr for 3.5*10^7 yr. At the final phase of the bar-driven fueling, self-gravity is crucial for the angular momentum transfer of the gas. This is a new mechanism for gas fueling to the vicinity of the SMBH.

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arXiv1998

Formation of Plumes in Head-on Collisions of Galaxies

Using N-body and SPH modeling we perform 3D numerical simulations of head-on collisions between gas rich disk galaxies, including collisions between counter-rotating disks and off-center collisions. Pure stellar intruders do not produce gaseous plumes similar to those seen in the Cartwheel and VII Zw466 complexes of interacting galaxies; the presence of gas in an intruder galaxy and radiative cooling are important for the formation of a gaseous plume extending from the disk of a target galaxy. A noticeable plume structure can be formed if the mass of an intruder is a few percent of the mass of the primary. The halo of the intruder is stripped in the collision, and dispersed particles form a broad stellar bridge connecting the two galaxies. The fraction of the intruder's halo dispersed in the collision depends on the total mass of the intruder, and low-mass intruders lose most of their mass.

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arXiv1997

The Effect of a Central Supermassive black hole on the Gas Fuelling

When a supermassive black hole exists in the centre of a galaxy, an additional inner Lindblad resonance (ILR) exists inside the usual ILRs. We study gas dynamics in a weakly barred potential with a central supermassive black hole by using 2D numerical simulations, and we investigate the effect of the additional ILR on fuelling gas into nuclear starburst regions or AGNs. Our numerical results show that strong trailing spiral shocks are formed at the resonance region, and the gas in the shock region is rapidly fuelled into a central region and make a nuclear gas ring. As a result, a large amount of gas is concentrated in the nuclear region beyond the ILR in a dynamical time scale.

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arXiv1995

Bar-driven Fueling to a Galactic Central Reagin in a Massive Gas Disk

We have found an effective fueling process to a central region of galaxies with weak bar-like distortion by two dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. Gravitational instability of an elongated gas ring at the inner Lindblad resonance (ILR), which has been reported as an effective fueling mechanism, are not needed for this fueling process. A massive gaseous disk in a central region of galaxies sensitively responds to the weakly distorted potential, and a large amount of gas can be fed into within $1/20$ of a core radius of the potential in several $10^7$ yr. The ILRs, the dissipative nature of the gas, and self-gravity of the gas are essential for triggering this effective fueling. The accumulation process has not been ever known: the gas accumulates to form a dense `linear' structure inclined at about 45 degree with respect to the bar potential in a {\it leading sense}. We also found that a counter rotating gaseous core can be formed as a result of the fueling. The sense of the rotation of the core depends on a fraction of the gas mass to the background mass. Physical mechanism of the fueling process can be understood using a linear theory of gaseous orbits in a weak barred potential.

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arXiv1995

Effects of Starbursts on the Structure of Young Galaxies

We have investigated the effects of primeval starbursts on the galactic structure, showing that the dynamical structure of young galaxies is changed by relaxation of a stellar system formed by a starburst-driven outflowing gas (superwind). When a superwind interacts with halo gas, an expanding dense supershell of shocked gas is formed. Using a similarity solution for the expanding shell and a condition for the gravitational instability of a gaseous shell, we show that an expanding gaseous shell with a mass of several $10^{10} M_\odot$ and a radius of several kpc becomes gravitationally unstable to form stars. A stellar shell is thus formed, relaxes and will evolve into a fat stellar system. \par In order to investigate the fate of the stellar shell and its dynamical influence on the host galaxy, we performed three dimensional $N$-body simulations of a stellar shell plus disk system. The evolution of the stellar shell was computed under two types of environment: an external flattened potential and a live stellar disk. We find that the relaxation process and resultant structure are significantly affected by the external disk potential, and also depend on the velocity dispersion of the initial shell stars and the mass of the shell. The final galactic structure ranges from a thick disk and a compact bulge with a high density core to a thin disk with a diffuse bulge. Isodensity maps of the computed disk plus bulge system resemble isophotes of S0 galaxies. We suggest that the effects of primeval starbursts would explain some observational properties of S0 galaxies.

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