Role of Mass Inflow and Supernova Feedback on Nuclear Ring Star Formation

Observations suggest the star formation in nuclear rings of barred galaxies proceeds episodically in time and sometimes asymmetrically in space. Existing theories and numerical simulations suggest that the episodic star formation is perhaps due to either supernova feedback combined with fluid instabilities or time-varying mass inflow rate. However, it has been challenging to discern what dominates in shaping the star formation history because the effects of the inflow and feedback are blended in global simulations of nuclear rings. To understand their effects separately, we construct semi-global models of nuclear rings, which treat the mass inflow rate as a model parameter. By running simulations with the inflow rates kept constant or oscillating in time, we find that the star formation rate (SFR) of the rings varies coherently with the inflow rate, while the feedback is responsible only for stochastic fluctuations of the SFR within a factor of two. The feedback instead plays an important role in maintaining the vertical dynamical equilibrium and setting the depletion time. While the asymmetry in the inflow does not necessarily lead to the asymmetry in the star formation, we find that the rings undergo a transient period of lopsided star formation when the inflow rate of only one dust lane is suddenly increased.