English

Dynamical modelling of galactic disc outskirts

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2017-03-29 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

I review briefly some dynamical models of structures in the outer parts of disc galaxies, including models of polar rings, tidal tails and bridges. I then discuss the density distribution in the outer parts of discs. For this, I compare observations to results of a model in which the disc galaxy is in fact the remnant of a major merger, and find good agreement. This comparison includes radial profiles of the projected surface density and of stellar age, as well as time evolution of the break radius and of the inner and outer disc scale lengths. I also compare the radial projected surface density profiles of dynamically motivated mono-age populations and find that, compared to older populations, younger ones have flatter density profiles in the inner region and steeper in the outer one. The break radius, however, does not vary with stellar age, again in good agreement with observations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1612.06400,
  title  = {Dynamical modelling of galactic disc outskirts},
  author = {E. Athanassoula},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1612.06400},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

8 pages, 2 figures, invited review at IAU Symposium 321 "Formation and Evolution of Galaxy Outskirts", eds. A. Gil de Paz, J.C. Lee & J.H. Knapen

R2 v1 2026-06-22T17:28:47.258Z