The formation of stellar galactic nuclei through dissipative gas dynamics

Abstract

It is a long-standing and remarkable problem as to howstellar galactic nuclei (SGN) were formed in the central region of galaxies. In order to elucidate the formation processes of SGN, we numerically investigate gas dynamics, star formation, and chemical evolution in the central 1?1000 pc of gas disks embedded by galactic stellar spheroids. The main results of the present numerical study are: (a) SGN can be formed from dissipative, repeated merging of massive stellar and gaseous clumps that have typical masses of 10 5?106 M? and are developed from nuclear gaseous spiral arms owing to local gravitational instability. Typically ?5% of the masses of their host spheroids can be transfered to the central?50 pc and thus become SGN. (b) SGN have very flattened shapes, and rotational kinematics and central velocity dispersions much smaller than those of their host spheroids. These structural and kinematic characteristics do not depend on model parameters such as masses of spheroids (Msph) and initial gas mass fraction (fg). (c) Stellar populations of SGN can show a wide rage of ages and metallicities, because SGN are formed from massive clumps with different star-formation and chemical-evolution histories. The mean metallicities of SGN can be significantly higher than those of their host spheroids. (d) More massive, higher density SGN can be formed in spheroids with higher surface brightness. Furthermore there can be a threshold value (?0.2) of fg below which massive SGN are less likely to be formed in the central gas disks of spheroids. (e) More massive spheroids can have more massive, more metal-rich and higher-density SGN, because star formation and chemical enrichment proceed more efficiently owing to the less dramatic suppression of star formation by supernovae feedback effects in more massive spheroids. Based on these results, we discuss correlations between the physical properties of SGN and those of their host galaxies, structural and kinematic properties of SGN of dwarf elliptical galaxies and the origin of very massive star clusters such as ? Cen and ultra-compact dwarf galaxies. © Astronomical Society of Australia 2007.