Related papers: Density-Wave Spiral Theories in the 1960s. I
By the 1970s the spiral subject was in considerable disarray. The semiempirical theory by Lin and Shu was confronted with serious problems. They were put on the defensive over their tightly wrapped steady modes on two principal fronts: from…
The density-wave theory of spiral structure proposes that star formation occurs in or near a spiral-shaped region of higher density that rotates rigidly within the galactic disk at a fixed pattern speed. In most interpretations of this…
The density-wave theory of galactic spiral-arm structure makes a striking prediction that the pitch angle of spiral arms should vary with the wavelength of the galaxy's image. The reason is that stars are born in the density wave but move…
The theoretical understanding of density waves in disk galaxies starts from the classical WKB perturbative analysis of tight-winding perturbations, the key assumption being that the potential due to the density wave is approximately radial.…
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…
This paper deals with the history of Density-Wave Spiral Theories in the 1960s. The motivation to write the paper was the publication of two papers on the history of these theories (Pasha 2004a,b). Pasha's papers tell only a part of the…
After a short review of the principal theories of spiral structure in galaxies, I describe two new developments. First, it now seems clear that linear theory cannot yield a full description for the development of spiral patterns because…
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 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…
We present a unified theory of linear spiral structure in stellar disks. We begin by identifying the characteristic scales involved in the spiral structure problem and listing some quantitative requirements of a successful theory. We then…
Aside from the grand-design stellar spirals appearing in the disk of M81, a pair of stellar spiral arms situated well inside the bright bulge of M81 has been recently discovered by Kendall et al. (2008). The seemingly unrelated pairs of…
Spiral structure is the most distinctive feature of disk galaxies and yet debate persists about which theory of spiral structure is the correct one. Many versions of the density wave theory demand that the pitch angle is uniquely determined…
Theories of spiral structure traditionally separate into tight-winding Lin-Shu spiral density waves and the swing-amplified material patterns of Goldreich & Lynden-Bell and Julian & Toomre. In this paper we consolidate these two types of…
In spiral galaxies, the pitch angle, $\alpha$, of the spiral arms is often proposed as a discriminator between theories for the formation of the spiral structure. In Lin-Shu density wave theory, $\alpha$ stays constant in time, being simply…
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…
Deep HI observations of the outer parts of disc galaxies demonstrate the frequent presence of extended, well-developed spiral arms far beyond the optical radius. To understand the nature and the origin of such outer spiral structure, we…
We analyze formation of grand-design two-arm spiral structure in the nuclear regions of disk galaxies. Such morphology has been recently detected in a number of objects using high-resolution near-infrared observations. Motivated by the…
Spirals shocks have been widely studied in the context of galactic dynamics and protostellar discs. They may however also play an important role in some classes of close binary stars, and more particularly in cataclysmic variables. In this…
Most fully developed galaxies have a vivid spiral structure, but the formation and evolution of the spiral structure are still an enigma in astrophysics. In this paper, according to the standard Newtonian gravitational theory and some…
We present decompositions of the rotation curves of three spiral galaxies at redshifts z~0.7 and 1 into contributions by their bulges, disks, and dark halos, respectively. In order to set constraints on the degeneracy of the decompositions…