Anomalously Weak Dynamical Friction in Halos
Abstract
A bar rotating in a pressure-supported halo generally loses angular momentum and slows down due to dynamical friction. Valenzuela & Klypin report a counter-example of a bar that rotates in a dense halo with little friction for several Gyr, and argue that their result invalidates the claim by Debattista & Sellwood that fast bars in real galaxies require a low halo density. We show that it is possible for friction to cease for a while should the pattern speed of the bar fluctuate upward. The reduced friction is due to an anomalous gradient in the phase-space density of particles at the principal resonance created by the earlier evolution. The result obtained by Valenzuela & Klypin is probably an artifact of their adaptive mesh refinement method, but anyway could not persist in a real galaxy. The conclusion by Debattista & Sellwood still stands.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0508036,
title = {Anomalously Weak Dynamical Friction in Halos},
author = {J. A. Sellwood and Victor P. Debattista},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0508036},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
To appear in "Island Universes - Structure and Evolution of Disk Galaxies" ed. R. S. de Jong, 8 pages, 4 figures, .cls and .sty files included