Structure and Kinematics of Polar Ring Galaxies: New Observations and Estimation of the Dark Halo Shape

Abstract

The polar ring galaxies (PRGs) represent an interesting type of peculiar systems in which the outer matter is rotating in the plane which is roughly perpendicular to the disk of the main galaxy. Despite the long-lasting study of the PRGs, the amount of observational data detailed enough is insufficient; there still remain many open questions. Among the most interesting issues, there are: estimating the flattening of dark matter halos in these systems and verifying the assumption that the most massive polar structures were formed by accretion of the matter from intergalactic filaments. The new catalog recently compiled by our team using SDSS images increased, by several times, the number of known PRGs. The current paper gives an overview of our latest results on the study of morphological and photometric structure of the PRGs. Using the stellar and ionized gas kinematics data based on spectroscopic observations with the Russian 6-m telescope, we estimate the shape of dark matter halo in individual galaxies.