Related papers: Self-Perpetuating Spiral Arms in Disk Galaxies
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…
We study transient spiral structures in an isothermal, thin, galactic disc. We find no instability that can grow everywhere from infinitesimal disturbances, but spiral structure does grow in the disc due to an arbitrarily strong,…
In order to understand the physical mechanisms underlying non-steady stellar spiral arms in disk galaxies, we analyzed the growing and damping phases of their spiral arms using three-dimensional $N$-body simulations. We confirmed that the…
The majority of astrophysics involves the study of spiral galaxies, and stars and planets within them, but how spiral arms in galaxies form and evolve is still a fundamental problem. Major progress in this field was made primarily in the…
Spiral patterns in some disc galaxies have two arms in the centre, and three or more arms on the periphery. The same result is also obtained in numerical simulations of stellar and gaseous discs. We argue that such patterns may occur due to…
The origin and types of spiral arms are reviewed with an emphasis on the connections between these arms and star formation. Flocculent spiral arms are most likely the result of transient instabilities in the gas that promote dense cloud…
One of the scenarios for the formation of grand-design spiral arms in disky galaxies involves their interactions with a satellite or another galaxy. Here we consider another possibility, where the perturbation is instead due to the…
Using an equation of motion for a self-gravitating filament, we show how galactic spiral arms might be created and sustained. We find that the combination of differential rotation of the galactic disk and the self-gravity of the arm (as…
Spiral arm structures seen in scattered light observations of protoplanetary disks can potentially serve as signposts of planetary companions. They can also lend unique insights into disk masses, which are critical in setting the mass…
The origin of galactic spiral arms is one of fundamental problems in astrophysics. Based on the local analysis Toomre (1981) proposed the swing amplification mechanism in which the self-gravity forms spiral arms as leading waves of stars…
Spiral density wave theory attempts to describe the spiral pattern in spiral galaxies in terms of a long-lived wave structure with a constant pattern speed in order to avoid the winding dilemma. The pattern is consequently a rigidly…
Spiral-driven instabilities may drive gas inflow to enhance central star formation in disk galaxies. We investigate this hypothesis using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in a sample of 2779 nearby unbarred star-forming main-sequence…
Spiral arms are the defining features of broad morphological classes of disc galaxies, but their nature and influence on galaxy evolution is still under debate. A key diagnostic for their nature is the spiral arm pattern speed: the radial…
It has been believed that spirals in pure stellar disks, especially the ones spontaneously formed, decay in several galactic rotations due to the increase of stellar velocity dispersions. Therefore, some cooling mechanism, for example…
Spiral density wave theory attempts to describe the spiral pattern in spiral galaxies in terms of a long-lived wave structure with a constant pattern speed in order to avoid the winding dilemma. The pattern is consequently a rigidly…
Fragmentation of a spiral arm is thought to drive the formation of giant clumps in galaxies. Using linear perturbation analysis for self-gravitating spiral arms, we derive an instability parameter and define the conditions for clump…
We discuss the properties of spiral arms in a N-body simulation of a barred galaxy and present evidence that these are manifold-driven. The strongest evidence comes from following the trajectories of individual particles. Indeed, these move…
Star formation is enhanced in spiral arms because of a combination of orbit crowding, cloud collisions, and gravitational instabilities. The characteristic mass for the instability is 10^7 Msun in gas and 10^5 Msun in stars, and the…
The origin of grand design spiral structure in galaxies is still under debate but one of promising scenarios involves tidal interactions. We use N-body simulations to study the evolution of a Milky Way-size galaxy in a Virgo-like cluster.…
An overwhelming majority of galactic spiral arms trail with respect to the rotation of the galaxy, though a small sample of leading spiral arms has been observed. The formation of these leading spirals is not well understood. Here we show,…