Efficient simulation method for a gas inflow to the central molecular zone

  • Shin, Jihye (Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University) ;
  • Kim, Sungsoo S. (School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University) ;
  • Baba, Junichi (Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology) ;
  • Saitoh, Takayuki R. (Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology) ;
  • Chun, Kyungwon (School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University) ;
  • Hozumi, Shunsuke (Faculty of Education, Shiga University)
  • Published : 2015.04.10

Abstract

We present hydrodynamic simulations of gas clouds that inflowing from the disk to a few hundred parsec region of the Milky Way. Realistic Galactic structures are included in our simulations by thousands of multipole expansions that describe 6.4 million stellar particles of a self-consistent Galaxy simulation (Baba, Saitoh & Wada, in prep.). We find that a hybrid multipole expansion model with two different basis sets and a thick disk correction well reproduces the overall structures of the Milky Way. We find that the nuclear ring evolves into 240 pc at T~1500 Myr, regardless of the initial size. For most of simulation runs, gas inflow rate to the nuclear region is equilibrated as ~0.02 Msun/yr, and thus accumulated gas mass and star formation activity is stabilized as $6{\times}10^7Msun$ and ~0.02M/yr, respectively. These stabilized values are in a good agreement with estimations for the CMZ. The nuclear ring is off-centered to the Galactic center by the lopsided central mass distribution of the Galaxy model, and thus an asymmetric mass distribution is arose accordingly. The lopsidedness also leads the nuclear ring to be tilted to the Galactic plane and to precess along the Galaxy rotation. In early evolutionary stage when gas clouds start to inflow and form the nuclear ring, the z-directional oscillations of the gas clouds results in the twisted, infinity-shaped nuclear ring. Since the infinity-shaped feature is transient only for first 100 Myr, the current infinity-shape observed in the CMZ may indicate that the CMZ forms quite recently.

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