Dynamically Driven Inflow onto the Galactic Center and its Effect upon
  Molecular Clouds
  The Galactic bar plays a critical role in the evolution of the Milky Way's
Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), driving mass inward toward the Galactic Center
via gas flows known as dust lanes. To explore the interaction between the CMZ
and the dust lanes, we run hydrodynamic simulations in AREPO, modeling the
potential of the Milky Way's bar in the absence of gas self-gravity and star
formation physics, and we study the flows of mass using Monte Carlo tracer
particles. We estimate the efficiency of the inflow via the dust lanes, finding
that only about a third (30$\pm$12%) of the dust lanes' mass initially accretes
onto the CMZ, while the rest overshoots and accretes later. Given observational
estimates of the amount of gas within the Milky Way's dust lanes, this suggests
that the true total inflow rate onto the CMZ is 0.8$\pm$0.6
M$_\odot$~yr$^{-1}$. Clouds in this simulated CMZ have sudden peaks in their
average density near the apocenter, where they undergo violent collisions with
inflowing material. While these clouds tend to counter-rotate due to shear,
co-rotating clouds occasionally occur due to the injection of momentum from
collisions with inflowing material (~52% are strongly counter-rotating, and ~7%
are strongly co-rotating of the 44 cloud sample). We investigate the formation
and evolution of these clouds, finding that they are fed by many discrete
inflow events, providing a consistent source of gas to CMZ clouds even as they
collapse and form stars
