Related papers: Global m=1 instabilities and lopsidedness in disc …
Molecular gas disks are generally Toomre stable ($Q_T>$1) and yet clearly gravitationally unstable to structure formation as evidenced by the existence of molecular clouds and ongoing star formation. This paper adopts a 3D perspective to…
Mass models of galactic disks traditionally rely on axisymmetric density and rotation curves, paradoxically acting as if their most remarkable asymmetric features, such as lopsidedness or spiral arms, were not important. In this article, we…
This paper continues a series reporting different aspects of the behaviour of disc galaxy simulations that support spiral instabilities. The focus in this paper is to demonstrate how linear spiral instabilities saturate and decay, and how…
The frequently observed lopsidedness of the distribution of stars and gas in disc galaxies is still considered as a major problem in galaxy dynamics. It is even discussed as an imprint of the formation history of discs and the evolution of…
Simulations show eccentric disks (m=1 modes) forming around quasi-Keplerian potentials, a topic of interest for fueling quasars, forming super-massive BHs, planet formation and migration, explaining the origin and properties of nuclear…
We investigate the formation of multiple spiral modes in Milky Way-like disk-halo systems without explicitly exciting perturbations. We explore how numerical resolution, the level of local disk stability, and the presence of a live halo…
In this review, I discuss just three aspects of the stability and evolution of galactic discs. (1) I first review our understanding of the bar instability and how it can be controlled. Disc galaxies in which the orbital speed does not…
The origin of spiral patterns in galaxies is still not fully understood. Similar features also develop readily in N-body simulations of isolated cool, collisionless disks, yet even here the mechanism has yet to be explained. In this series…
We present new results on dynamical instabilities in rapidly rotating neutron-stars. In particular, using numerical simulations in full General Relativity, we analyse the effects that the stellar compactness has on the threshold for the…
We present results of numerical N-body simulations of a galactic stellar disk embedded into a spherical dark halo. The non-linear dynamics of bending instabilities developing in the disk is studied. The bending modes, axisymmetric and not,…
We have examined the stability of a sequence of oblate elliptical galaxy models having the Stackel form suggested by Kuz'min & Kutuzov. We have employed the 2-integral DFs given by Dejonghe & de Zeeuw for which flattened non-rotating models…
The inner disc of the local group galaxy M33 appears to be in settled rotational balance, and near IR images reveal a mild, large-scale, two-arm spiral pattern with no strong bar. We have constructed N-body models that match all the…
In order to address the question of whether spiral disturbances in galaxy discs are gravitationally coupled to the halo, we conduct simulations of idealized models of disc galaxies. We compare growth rates of spiral instabilities in…
We use linear perturbation theory to investigate how a groove in the phase space of a disc galaxy changes the stellar disc's stability properties. Such a groove is a narrow trough around a fixed angular momentum from which most stars have…
We investigate a theoretical MHD disc problem involving a composite disc system of gravitationally coupled stellar and gaseous discs with a coplanar magnetic field in the presence of an axisymmetric dark matter halo. The two discs are…
Class II protoplanetary discs feature numerous non-axisymmetric substructures like spirals and the underlying mechanisms for their formation are still highly debated. Coincidentally, early stage, massive discs are subject to the…
Recent results by Martin et al. (2014) showed in 3D SPH simulations that tilted discs in binary systems can be unstable to the development of global, damped Kozai-Lidov (KL) oscillations in which the discs exchange tilt for eccentricity. We…
Large-scale asymmetries (i.e. lopsidedness) are a common feature in the stellar density distribution of nearby disk galaxies both in low- and high-density environments. In this work, we characterize the present-day lopsidedness in a sample…
Galaxies above redshift 1 can be very clumpy, with irregular morphologies dominated by star complexes as large as 2 kpc and as massive as a few 10^8 or 10^9 Mo. Their co-moving densities and rapid evolution suggest that most present-day…
Protoplanetary discs may become dynamically unstable due to structure induced by an embedded giant planet. In this thesis, I discuss the stability of such systems and explore the consequence of instability on planetary migration. I begin…