Related papers: Dawes Review 4: Spiral Structures in Disc Galaxies
The first mechanism invoked to explain the existence of the thick disk in the Milky Way Galaxy, were the spiral arms. Up-to-date work summon several other possibilities that together seem to better explain this component of our Galaxy. All…
We show that in N-body simulations of isolated spiral discs, spiral arms appear to transient, recurring features that co-rotate with the stellar disc stars at all radii. As a consequence, stars around the spiral arm continually feel 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…
We study formation and long-term evolution of a circumstellar disk in a collapsing molecular cloud core using a resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulation. While the formed circumstellar disk is initially small, it grows as accretion…
Understanding the effect spiral structure has on star formation properties of galaxies is important to completing our picture of spiral structure evolution. Previous studies have investigated connections between spiral arm properties with…
This paper, the first of two, introduces an observational study of spiral structure in galaxies chosen from the SINGS survey. Near infrared (NIR) and optical data are used to produce mass surface density maps, and from these the morphology…
Spiral arms greatly affect gas flows and star formation in disk galaxies. We use local three-dimensional simulations of the vertically-stratified, self-gravitating, differentially-rotating, interstellar medium (ISM) subject to a stellar…
We propose a theory to explain the formation of spiral arms and of all types of outer rings in barred galaxies, extending and applying the technique used in celestial mechanics to compute transfer orbits. Thus, our theory is based on the…
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 are common features in low-redshift disc galaxies, and are prominent sites of star-formation and dust obscuration. However, spiral structure can take many forms: from galaxies displaying two strong `grand design' arms, to those…
In this work we determine the parameters of spiral structure for a sample of face-on spiral galaxies. In practice, the solution of this problem is a hard task because of the diversity of the observed characteristics of spiral structure,…
The organization of the interstellar medium in disk galaxies obeys the large scale dynamics set by kpc-size structures. Improving our knowledge of how the dense, molecular gas is distributed in a disk is an important step in our…
In a series of papers, we propose a theory to explain the formation and properties of rings and spirals in barred galaxies. The building blocks of these structures are orbits guided by the manifolds emanating from the unstable Lagrangian…
Last years studies have shown that the spatial regularity in the distribution of young stellar population along the spiral arms and rings of galaxies, previously considered to be rare, is a fairly common phenomenon. Spatial regularity has…
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…
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…
Making use of a set of detailed potential models for normal spiral galaxies, we analyze the disk stellar orbital dynamics as the structural and dynamical parameters of the spiral arms (mass, pattern speed and pitch angle) are gradually…
Azimuthal color (age) gradients across spiral arms are one of the main predictions of density wave theory; gradients are the result of star formation triggering by the spiral waves. In a sample of 13 spiral galaxies of types A and AB, we…
Spiral galaxies are common in the local Universe, but their formation, evolution, and interplay with bars remain poorly understood. We use a sample of 391 nearby galaxies from the S$^4$G survey to characterise the winding angle and…
We present the numerical study of the formation of spiral structure in the context of violent relaxation. Initial conditions are the out-of-equilibrium disks of self-gravitating particles in rigid rotation. By that mechanism, robust and…