Related papers: Old stellar counter-rotating components in ellipti…
N-body simulations of major spiral-spiral mergers with different mass ratios q <= 4:1 are presented. All mergers lead to spheroidal stellar systems with de Vaucouleurs-like surface density profiles, resembling elliptical galaxies. The…
The projected kinematical properties of unequal-mass merger remnants of disk galaxies are analysed and shown to agree well with observations of disky, fast rotating elliptical galaxies. This supports the major merger hypothesis of…
In this review we consider various ring structures that are observed in galaxies. Formation and evolution of the rings are interesting problems in studies of galactic morphology. They are related to such fundamental aspects of galactic…
Observations consistently show that elliptical galaxies follow a tight "fundamental plane" scaling relation between size, mean surface brightness and velocity dispersion, with the form $R \propto \sigma^{a}\mu^{b}$. This relation not only…
A six-dimensional parameter space based on high-resolution numerical simulations of isolated binary galaxy collisions has been constructed to investigate the dynamical friction timescales, $\tau_{\rm mer}$, for major mergers. Our…
We analyse the phase-space structure of simulated thick discs that are the result of a significant merger between a disc galaxy and a satellite. Our main goal is to establish what would be the characteristic imprints of a merger origin for…
N-body simulations of galactic collisions are employed to investigate the formation of elliptical rings in disk galaxies. The relative inclination between disk and dwarf galaxies is studied with a fine step of five degrees. It is confirmed…
In a previous study on gas-stellar counterrotation for a large sample of E/S0 and spiral galaxies (Kannappan & Fabricant 2001), two dwarf irregular galaxies were included, of which one was tentatively identified as a counterrotator. Here we…
We present the evolution of rotational directions of circumstellar disks in a triple protostar system simulated from a turbulent molecular cloud core with no magnetic field. We find a new formation pathway of a counter-rotating…
When they first appear in the HR diagram, young stars rotate at a mere 10\% of their break-up velocity. They must have lost most of the angular momentum initially contained in the parental cloud, the so-called angular momentum problem. We…
Either bulk rotation or local turbulence is widely invoked to drive fragmentation in collapsing cores so as to produce multiple star systems. Even when the two mechanisms predict different manners in which the stellar spins and orbits are…
The Sa(r) galaxy NGC 4138 has been recently found to contain an extensive counterrotating disk which appears to be still forming. Up to a third of the stars in the disk system may be on retrograde orbits. A counterrotating ring of H II…
Orbital dynamics in time-reversal-symmetric centrosymmetric systems is examined theoretically. Contrary to common belief, we demonstrate that many aspects of orbital dynamics are qualitatively different from spin dynamics because the…
Optical and X-ray studies have established the prevalence of significant substructure in clusters of galaxies, indicating that clusters are young systems, and that recent major mergers have occurred in many clusters. Numerical simulations…
The processes are investigated by which gas loses its angular momentum during the protogalactic collapse phase, leading to disk galaxies that are too compact with respect to the observations. High-resolution N-body/SPH simulations in a…
We study numerical simulations of satellite galaxy disruption in a potential resembling that of the Milky Way. Our goal is to assess whether a merger origin for the stellar halo would leave observable fossil structure in the phase-space…
This work focuses on the dynamics and the detection methods of co-orbital exoplanets. We call "co-orbital" any configuration in which two planets orbit with the same mean mean-motion around the same star. First, we revisit the results of…
The origin of boxy and disky elliptical galaxies is investigated. The results of two collisionless N-body simulations of spiral-spiral mergers with mass ratios of 1:1 and 3:1 are discussed and the projected properties of the merger remnants…
Recent observations have suggested that circumstellar disks may commonly form around young stellar objects. Although the formation of circumstellar disks can be a natural result of the conservation of angular momentum in the parent cloud,…
In planetary systems with sufficiently small inter-planet spacing, close encounters can lead to planetary collisions/mergers or ejections. We study the spin property of the merger products of two giant planets in a statistical manner using…