We present the results of a highly sensitive (~10 mK rms) survey toward the central parts of 22 barred spiral galaxies in 12CO(1-0) line using the NRAO 12m telescope at Kitt Peak. Seven of the target galaxies were detected in CO; NGC 3686 has been detected with CO for the first time. We estimated central CO fluxes of 50~1000 Jy km s-1 and molecular gas masses of 107~108 M⊙ for those galaxies.

Disk galaxies abound with intermediate-scale structures such as OB star complexes, giant clouds, and dust spurs in a close geometrical association with spiral arms. Various mechanisms have been proposed as candidates for their origin, but a comprehensive theory should encompass fundamental physical agents such as self-gravity, magnetic fields, galactic differential rotation, and spiral arms, all of which are known to exist in disk galaxies. Recent numerical simulations incorporating all these physical processes show that magneto-Jeans instability (MJI), in which magnetic tension resists the stabilizing Coriolis force of galaxy rotation, is much more powerful than swing-amplification or the Parker instability in forming self-gravitating intermediate-scale structures. The MJI occurring in shearing and expanding flows off spiral arms rapidly forms structures elongated along the direction perpendicular to the arms, remarkably similar to dust spurs seen in HST images of spiral galaxies. In highly nonlinear stages, these spurs fragment to form bound clumps, possibly evolving into bright arm and interarm H II regions, suggesting that all these intermediate-scale structures in spiral galaxies probably share a common dynamical origin.

Anomalies in the far-infrared [C II] 158 μm line emission observed in the central one-kiloparsec regions of spiral galaxies are reviewed. Low far-infrared intensity ratios of the [C II] line to the continuum were observed in the center of the Milky Way, because the heating ratio of the gas to the dust is reduced by the soft interstellar radiation field due to late-type stars in the Galactic bulge. In contrast, such low line-to-continuum ratios were not obtained in the center of the nearby spiral M31, in spite of its bright bulge. A comparison with numerical simulations showed that a typical column density of the neutral interstellar medium between illuminating sources at hv ~ 1 eV is NH ≲ 1021 cm-2 in the region; the medium is translucent for photons sufficiently energetic to heat the grains but not sufficiently energetic to heat the gas. This interpretation is consistent with the combination of the extremely high [C Il]/CO J = 1-0 line intensity ratios and the low recent star-forming activity in the region; the neutral interstellar medium is not sufficiently opaque to protect the species even against the moderately intense incident UV radiation. The above results were unexpected from classical views of the [C II] emission, which was generally considered to trace intense interstellar UV radiation enhanced by active star formation.

We have conducted a V-band CCD surface photometry of 68 disk galaxies to analyze the bulge morphology of nearby spirals. We classify bulges into four types according to their ellipticities and the misalignments between the major axis of the bulge and those of the disk and the bar: spherical, oblate, pseudo triaxial, and triaxial. We found that one third of the bulges are triaxial and they are preponderant in barred galaxies. The presence of the triaxial bulges in a significant fraction of unbarred galaxies as well as in barred galaxies might support the secular evolution hypothesis which postulates that the bar driven mass inflow leads to the formation of triaxial bulges and the destruction of bars when sufficient mass is accumulated in the central regions.

It is now a well established fact that galaxies undergo significant morphological transformation during their lifetimes, manifesting as an evolution along the Hubble sequence from the late to the early Hubble types. The physical processes commonly believed to be responsible for this observed evolution trend, i.e. the major and minor mergers, as well as gas accretion under a barred potential, though demonstrated applicability to selected types of galaxies, on the whole have failed to reproduce the most important statistical and internal properties of galaxies. The secular evolution mechanism reviewed in this paper has the potential to overcome most of the known difficulties of the existing theories to provide a natural and coherent explanation of the properties of present day as well as high-redshift galaxies.

In this paper, we investigate the correlation between the radial ultraviolet color distribution and the shapes of the ultraviolet isophote for elliptical galaxies (M32, NGC 1399) and spiral bulges (of M31, M81) by using their archival UIT images. For M31, M81, and NGC 1399, the radial ultraviolet color distributions show a two-component trend; as the distance from the galactic center increase the color becomes redder in the inner region while it becomes bluer in the outer region. On the other hand, the color of M32 continues to become bluer with the increasing galactocentric distance. We also find, unlike the optical/IR images, significant variations of the position angle and the ellipticity in the ultraviolet isophotes of M31, M81, and NGC 1399 through the inner regions. For M32, the variation is significant in the outer region. Since these variation implies the triaxiality of their intrinsic shapes, we suggest that the early-type galaxies and spiral bulges with a radial color gradient in ultraviolet tend to have a triaxiality. On the other hand, the shape parameter characterized by the fourth order cosine Fourier coefficient of the isophote, a(4)/a, indicates that the systematic deviations of the ultraviolet isophotes of the four galaxies are smaller than ~0.2% in units of the semi-major axis. The latter result implies that the ultraviolet isophotes of the galaxies have a pure elliptical shape rather than the boxy or disky shapes. Therefore, there is no clear evidence of correlation between the radial ultra-violet color gradient and the boxy/disky shapes of isophotes.

We review the early historical developement of astronomical spectrographs, properties of emission line spectra of HII regions in spiral galaxies, and absorption line features of galactic globular clusters. Emission line spectra of HII regions within three spiral galaxies NGC 300, NGC 1365, and NGC 7793, which were observed from AAT/IPCS, had been analysed, and we discuss the abundances of elements in HII regions and the radial abundace gradients through the galaxies. The radial UBV color variations of two globular clusters, NGC 1851 and NGC 2808, were examined for correlations with radial variations of several absorption lines in the integrated spectra, which were obtained from SAAO 74 inch telescope and image tube spectrograph. Nine giant star's spectra in NGC 3201 were also obtained and analysed for the radial abundance gradients in the globular cluster. The results show that the presence of a radial color gradient in a globular cluster is correlated with the presence of abundance gradients. Finally, we suggest some scientific programs for the new high dispersion spectrograph, which will be installed to the BOAO 1.8m telescope.

We performed VRI CCD surface photometry of three spiral galaxies of HCG10 in order to understand the effect of interactions in the compact group. The morphology of the largest member NGC 536 seems to be normal but its bulge is thought to be of an oblate spheroid. The central surface brightness of the disk of NGC 536 is much fainter than that of disks of nearby spiral galaxies. The morphologies of NGC 531 and NGG 542 appear to be affected by interactions which lead to a warped disk in NGC 531 and a slightly bent disk in NGC 542. NGC 531 have a boxy bulge and a Freeman Type II disk both of which strongly suggest the presence of a bar in the galaxy. There is a break in the slope of the luminosity profile of NGC 542 which is dominated by the disk component.

We have conducted BV RI CCD surface photometry of three spiral galaxies ESO 598-G009, NGC 1515 and NGC 7456. In order to understand the morphological properties and luminosity distribution characteristics for each galaxy, we derived isophotal map, position angle profile, ellipticity profile, luminosity profile, color profile and color contour map. ESO 598-G009, which has a bright bulge component and a ring, shows a trace of gravitational interaction. NGC 1515 is a spiral galaxy with a bar and dust lane. NGC 7456 shows typical characteristics of a late type spiral galaxy.

We show that the star formation activity of spiral galaxies has a great variety. The star formation variation in a time scale of 10 8 yr and the mechanism responsible for the variation are discussed.

Rings are common in disk galaxies. These rings are either indistinguishable from a pair of tightly wound spirals, or themselves are a part of the spiral structure. Furthermore, their occurrence is seen coincident with a bar in the center. In this paper, we interpret this spiral-ring structure as density waves resonantly excited by a rotating bar potential. The theory gives excellent agreement for the molecular spiral-rings in central parts. of nearby disk galaxies, observed by high resolution radio arrays. The same mechanism works for more distant spiral-rings in the outer parts of disk galaxies qualitatively, although the problem is complicated by the coupling of the stellar and gaseous disks.