Morphological Statistic of Milky Way-like Galaxies

Abstract

We analyze the spiral morphology of 1,738 nearby galaxies with similar Hubble type of the Milky Way (i<60^∘, z<0.048) using multi-band optical images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Digitized Sky Survey. Multiple-arm systems dominate, comprising ∼50-60% of the sample and ∼75% of large galaxies (d_max geqslant 18 kpc). In 90±3% of multiple-arm galaxies, two inner arms extend into multiple outer arms; three-arm inner structures occur in 9±2%, and four or more are rare (<1%). Morphology and inner-arm counts are consistent across bands at ∼80%. Bifurcation points, marking the transition from two inner arms to multiple outer arms, occur in up to ∼40% of galaxies, are more prominent in bluer bands tracing younger stellar populations, and cluster within 4-7~kpc of galaxy centers. These statistics suggest that the Milky Way's inner two-arm and outer multiple-arm morphology, including bifurcations at similar radii, is broadly consistent with that of a typical multiple-arm spiral galaxy.

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BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{lin2026morphological,
  title = {{Morphological Statistic of Milky Way-like Galaxies}},
  author = {Zehao Lin and Junye Wei and Ye Xu and Yingjie Li and Chaojie Hao and Dejian Liu and Yiwei Dong and Zhen-yu Wu},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.34189},
  eprint = {2609.34189},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.34189},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Morphological Statistic of Milky Way-like Galaxies
AU  - Zehao Lin
AU  - Junye Wei
AU  - Ye Xu
AU  - Yingjie Li
AU  - Chaojie Hao
AU  - Dejian Liu
AU  - Yiwei Dong
AU  - Zhen-yu Wu
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/28
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.34189
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.34189
AB  - We analyze the spiral morphology of 1,738 nearby galaxies with similar Hubble type of the Milky Way (i<60^∘, z<0.048) using multi-band optical images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Digitized Sky Survey. Multiple-arm systems dominate, comprising ∼50-60% of the sample and ∼75% of large galaxies (d_max geqslant 18 kpc). In 90±3% of multiple-arm galaxies, two inner arms extend into multiple outer arms; three-arm inner structures occur in 9±2%, and four or more are rare (<1%). Morphology and inner-arm counts are consistent across bands at ∼80%. Bifurcation points, marking the transition from two inner arms to multiple outer arms, occur in up to ∼40% of galaxies, are more prominent in bluer bands tracing younger stellar populations, and cluster within 4-7~kpc of galaxy centers. These statistics suggest that the Milky Way's inner two-arm and outer multiple-arm morphology, including bifurcations at similar radii, is broadly consistent with that of a typical multiple-arm spiral galaxy.
ER  -

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