Breaks in the radial oxygen abundance and corotation radius of three spiral galaxies

Author(s)

Scarano, Jr., S. ^{[1, 2]} ; Lepine, J. R. D. ^[1] ; Marcon-Uchida, M. M. ^[1]

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Astron Geofis & Ciencias Atmosfer, BR-05508900 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[2] So Astrophys Res Telescope SOAR, La Serena - Chile

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; v. 412, n. 3, p. 1741-1754, APR 2011.
• Web of Science Citations: 15

Abstract

The correlation between the breaks in the metallicity distribution and the corotation radius of spiral galaxies has been already advocated in the past and is predicted by a chemodynamical model of our Galaxy that effectively introduces the role of spiral arms in the star formation rate. In this work, we present photometric and spectroscopic observations made with the Gemini Telescope for three of the best candidates of spiral galaxies to have the corotation inside the optical disc: IC 0167, NGC 1042 and NGC 6907. We observed the most intense and well-distributed H ii regions of these galaxies, deriving reliable galactocentric distances and oxygen abundances by applying different statistical methods. From these results, we confirm the presence of variations in the gradients of metallicity of these galaxies that are possibly correlated with the corotation resonance. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 09/05181-8 - Determination of the Spatial Orientation of Galaxies Using Spiral Arms and Velocity Fields
• Grantee: Sergio Scarano Junior
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral