Related papers: Transient Spiral Arms in Isothermal Stellar System…
Spiral arms shown by different components may not be spatially coincident, which can constrain formation mechanisms of spiral structure in a galaxy. We reassess the spiral arm tangency directions in the Milky Way through identifying the…
This letter studies the formation of azimuthal metallicity variations in the disks of spiral galaxies in the absence of initial radial metallicity gradients. Using high-resolution $N$-body simulations, we model composite stellar discs, made…
The manifold theory of barred-spiral structure provides a dynamical mechanism explaining how spiral arms beyond the ends of galactic bars can be supported by chaotic flows extending beyond the bar's co-rotation zone. We discuss its…
Spiral arms are the most singular features in disc galaxies. These structures can exhibit different patterns, namely grand design and flocculent arms, with easily distinguishable characteristics. However, their origin and the mechanisms…
Spiral arms, if they are massive, exert gravitational torques that transport angular momentum radially within galactic disks. These torques depend not on the pattern speed or permanence of the arms but only on the nonaxisymmetric mass…
Recent knowledge of Galactic dynamics suggests that stars radially move on the disk when they encounter transient spiral arms that are naturally generated during the process of disk formation. We argue that a large movement of the solar…
The tidal interaction of a Be star with a binary companion forms two spiral arms that cause orbital modulation of the Be disc structure. The aim of this work is to identify observables in which this modulation is apparent. The structure of…
Galactic magnetic arms have been observed between the gaseous arms of some spiral galaxies; their origin remains unclear. We suggest that magnetic spiral arms can be naturally generated in the interarm regions because the galactic fountain…
The spiral arm tangencies are ideal lines of sight in which to determine the distribution of interstellar gas components in the spiral arms and study the influence of spiral density waves on the interarm gas in the Milky Way. We present a…
The nature of galactic spiral arms in disc galaxies remains elusive. Regardless of the spiral model, arms are expected to play a role in sculpting the star-forming interstellar medium. As such, different arm models may result in differences…
Scattered light images of transition discs in the near-infrared often show non-axisymmetric structures in the form of wide-open spiral arms in addition to their characteristic low-opacity inner gap region. We study self-gravitating discs…
We found that loosely wound spiral shocks in an isothermal gas disk caused by a non-axisymmetric potential are hydrodynamically unstable, if the shocks are strong enough. High resolution, global hydrodynamical simulations using three…
The dynamical nature and formation mechanism(s) of galactic spiral arms remain long-standing problems in astrophysics. Most theoretical work is based on analytic calculations or idealised simulations, which has yielded several theories of…
Sticky particle calculations indicate that a coherent structure, a dispersion ring, forms when a cloud on a low angular momentum orbit passes close to the dynamical center of an isothermal sphere containing a central point mass. The cloud…
Theories of stellar spiral arms in disk galaxies can be grouped into two classes based on the longevity of a spiral arm. Although the quasi-stationary density wave theory supposes that spirals are rigidly-rotating, long-lived patterns, 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 arms play a central role in disc galaxies, but their dynamical nature remains a long-standing open question. Azimuthal offsets between molecular gas and star formation are expected if gas crosses spiral arms, as predicted by…
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…
Context. The origin and nature of spiral arms remain unclear. Star forming regions and young stars are generally strongly associated to the spiral structure, but there are few quantitative predictions from simulations about the involvement…
We use CO and H alpha velocity fields to study the gas kinematics in the spiral arms and interarms of M51 (NGC 5194), and fit the 2D velocity field to estimate the radial and tangential velocity components as a function of spiral phase (arm…