Related papers: Spiral waves triggered by shadows in transition di…
We use a high resolution cosmological zoom simulation of a Milky Way-sized halo to study the observable features in velocity and metallicity space associated with the dynamical influence of spiral arms. For the first time, we demonstrate…
Spiral structures are a common feature in scattered-light images of protoplanetary disks, and of great interest as possible tracers of the presence of planets. However, other mechanisms have been put foward to explain them, including…
We have carried out two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations to study the effects of disk self-gravity and radiative cooling on the formation of gaps and spirals. (1) With disk self-gravity included, we find stronger, more tightly-wound…
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 density waves dominate several facets of accretion disc dynamics --- planet-disc interactions and gravitational instability (GI) most prominently. Though they have been examined thoroughly in two-dimensional simulations, their…
Astrophysical disks that are sufficiently cold and dense are linearly unstable to the formation of axisymmetric rings as a result of the disk's gravity. In practice, spiral structures are formed, which may in turn produce bound fragments.…
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…
We show that spiral waves in galaxy discs churn the stars and gas in a manner that largely preserves the overall angular momentum distribution and leads to little increase in random motion. Changes in the angular momenta of individual stars…
We test whether the spiral patterns apparent in many large disk galaxies should be thought of as dynamical features that are stationary in a co-rotating frame for > t_{dyn}, as implied by the density wave approach for explaining spiral…
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…
In the solar-neighbourhood, older stars have larger random velocities than younger ones. It is argued that the increase in velocity dispersion with time is predominantly a gradual process rather than one induced by discrete events such as…
High-resolution imaging of protoplanetary disks has unveiled a rich diversity of spiral structure, some of which may arise from disk-planet interaction. Using 3D hydrodynamics with $\beta$-cooling to a vertically-stratified background, as…
Theoretical models of protoplanetary disks including stellar irradiation often show a spontaneous amplification of scale height perturbations, produced by the enhanced absorption of starlight in enlarged regions. In turn, such regions cast…
Spiral waves are observed in many natural phenomena. They have been extensively represented by the mathematical FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) model [Barkley et al., Phys. Rev. A 42, 2489 (1990)] of excitable media. In incompressible fluid…
Spiral density waves are thought to be excited in the accretion discs of accreting compact objects, including Cataclysmic Variable stars (CVs). Observational evidence has been obtained for a handful of systems in outburst over the last two…
The mass of the gaseous reservoir in young circumstellar disks is a crucial initial condition for the formation of planetary systems, but estimates vary by orders of magnitude. In some disks with resolvable cavities, sharp inner disk warps…
The most important theory of the spiral arms of galaxies is the density wave theory based on the Lin-Shu dispersion relation. However, the density waves move with the group velocity towards the inner Lindblad resonance and tend to…
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…
The structure of spiral galaxies is essential to understanding the dynamics and evolution of disk galaxies; however, the precise nature of spiral arms remains uncertain. Two challenges in understanding the mechanisms driving spirals are how…
Warps are common features in both stellar and gaseous disks of nearby spiral galaxies with the latter usually easier to detect. Several theories have been proposed in the literature to explain their formation and prevalence, including tidal…