Light Cores Behind Dark Masks

DÍAZ, R.J.; MAST, D.; GIMENO, G.; DOTTORI, H.; RODRIGUES, I.; AGÜERO, M.; PSSEV, P.

Galaxies and their Masks

SPRINGER

Lugar: New York; Año: 2010; p. 129 - 137

The dusty circumnuclear environments of many spiral galaxies hide important clues for understanding the tight correlation between the supermassive black hole and the host galaxy bulge mass. Two of the nearest spiral galaxies with nuclear starburst host off-centered compact cores associated with the peak of the infrared emission.These compact objects are lightweight, up to a few million solar masses. Their locations imply that they are triggering the present star formation within the circumnuclear disk. Numerical modeling implies that the giant star clusters formed in the process evaporate in a few system revolutions (due to the strong asymmetric gravitational potential). Therefore the off-center compact object scenario provides a model in which the dynamically cold gaseous component is rapidly converted into a dynamically hot stellar component. Meanwhile only a small fraction of the gas contributes to the growth of the off-centered compact object.