AAS 200th meeting, Albuquerque, NM, June 2002
Session 43. Galaxies
Display, Tuesday, June 4, 2002, 10:00am-6:30pm, SW Exhibit Hall

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[43.15] The Central Kiloparsec of NGC 4303: Gas Dynamics in a Double-Barred Galaxy

E. Schinnerer (Caltech), W. Maciejewski (Arcetri, Krakow), L.A. Moustakas (Univ. of Oxford), N.Z. Scoville (Caltech)

The CO(1-0) line emission in the central kiloparsec of the double-barred galaxy NGC 4303 was observed with the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) millimeter interferometer. Most of the molecular line emission comes from two straight gas lanes which run north-south along the leading side of the large-scale primary bar. Velocity deviations of up to 90 km/s from the mean rotational velocity are associated with these gas lanes. Inside a radius of about 5''(400 pc) the molecular gas forms a spiral pattern which, for the northern arm, can be traced to the nucleus. The combination of our OVRO data with archival HST images enables us to perform a comparison against dynamical models of gas flow in the inner kiloparsec of single- and double-barred galaxies.


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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.