Related papers: Structure, mass and stability of galactic disks
Recent observations have revealed the structural properties of the dark and luminous mass distribution in spirals. These results led to the vision of a new and amazing scenario. The investigation of single and coadded objects has shown that…
The gravitational instability of expanding shells triggering the formation of clouds and stars is analyzed. Disks with different scale-heights, ambient and shell velocity dispersions, mid-plane densities, rotation rates and shear rates are…
Spirals in galaxies have long been thought to be caused by gravitational instability in the stellar component of the disk, but discerning the precise mechanism had proved elusive. Tidal interactions, and perhaps bars, may provoke some…
The star formation process in molecular clouds usually leads to the formation of multiple stellar systems, mostly binaries. Remaining disks around those stars may be located around individual stars (circumstellar disks) or around the entire…
Can the present dynamics of spiral galaxies tell us something about the merging history, the formation and evolution of disks? Galaxy interactions thicken or destroy disks; the simultaneous presence of thick and thin disks is a tracer of…
The results of numerical simulations of the dynamics of galactic disks, which are submerged into nonaxisymmetric dark massive halo are discussed. Galaxy disks dynamics in the nonaxisymmetric (triaxial) dark halo were investigated in detail…
The disks that orbit young stars are the essential conduits and reservoirs of material for star and planet formation. Their structures, meaning the spatial variations of the disk physical conditions, reflect the underlying mechanisms that…
Local gravitational instability (LGI) is considered crucial for regulating star formation and gas turbulence in galaxy discs, especially at high redshift. Instability criteria usually assume infinitesimally thin discs or rely on…
The local gravitational instability of rotating discs is believed to be an important mechanism in different astrophysical processes, including the formation of gas and stellar clumps in galaxies. We aim to study in three dimensions the…
We construct self-consistent light and mass distribution models for 4 distant spiral galaxies. The models include a bulge, a disk and an isothermal dark matter. We find the luminosity profiles to have much steeper cut-off than that of a…
We study the evolution of disk galaxies using galaxy evolutionary models with initial and boundary conditions linked to the hierarchical formation scenario. Disks galaxies are modeled locally within growing cold dark matter halos and…
The formation and evolution of disk galaxies in the cosmological context is studied. We consider the observable properties of disk galaxies and treat the disk formation and galactic evolutionary processes in a self-consistent fashion. We…
We discuss recent observations of stars located close to the symmetry plane of the Milky Way, and examine them in the context of theories of Galaxy formation and evolution. The kinematics, ages, and compositions of thin disk stars in the…
Spiral galaxies offer a unique opportunity to study the role of star formation in galaxy evolution and to test various theoretical star formation schemes. I review some recent relevant work on the evolution of spiral galaxies. Detailed…
Low-mass disk galaxies with well-organized structures are relatively common in low density regions of the nearby Universe. They display a wide range in levels of star formation activity, extending from sluggishly evolving `superthin' disk…
We reassess the applicability of the Toomre criterion in galactic disks and we study the local star formation law in 16 disk galaxies for which abundance gradients are published. The data we use consists of stellar light profiles, atomic…
The majority of disk galaxies manifest spirals and/or bars that are believed to result from dynamical instabilities. However, some galaxies have featureless disks, which are therefore inferred to be dynamically stable. Yet despite many…
Estimates of the dynamical surface mass density at the solar Galactocentric distance are commonly derived assuming that the disk is in vertical equilibrium with the Galactic potential. This assumption has recently been called into question,…
The standard Q criterion (with Q > 1) describes the local stability of a disc supported by rotation and random motion. Most astrophysical discs, however, are under the influence of an external gravitational field which can affect their…
The physical background of scaling laws of disk galaxies is reviewed. The match between analytically derived and observed scaling laws is briefly discussed. Accurate modeling of the fraction of baryons that end populating a disk, and the…