The lifetime of grand design

Abstract

The lifetime of the structure in grand design spiral galaxies is observationally ill-determined, but is essentially set by how accurately the rotation of the pattern can be characterized by a single angular pattern speed. This paper derives a generalized version of the Tremaine- Weinberg method for observationally determining pattern speeds, in which the pattern speed is allowed to vary arbitrarily with radius. The departures of the derived pattern speed from a constant then provide a simple metric of the lifetime of the spiral structure. Application of this method to CO observations of NGC 1068 reveals that the pattern speed of the spiral structure in this galaxy varies rapidly with radius, and that the lifetime of the spiral structure is correspondingly very short. If this result turns out to be common in grand-design spiral galaxies, then these features will have to be viewed as highly transient phenomena. © 2005 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2005 RAS.