Related papers: The Dynamics of Galactic Warps
Observations reveal that mature spiral galaxies consist of stars, gases and plasma approximately distributed in a thin disk of circular shape, usually with a central bulge. The rotation velocities quickly increase from the galactic center…
The relics of disrupted satellite galaxies around the Milky Way and Andromeda have been found, but direct evidence of a satellite galaxy in the early stages of being disrupted has remained elusive. We have discovered a dwarf satellite…
The role of dark matter halos in galaxy disk evolution is reviewed, in particular the stabilisation of disks through self-gravity reduction, or the bar development through angular momentum exchange. Triaxial dark halos tend to weaken bars.…
Accretion discs around black holes in X-ray binary stars are warped if the spin axis of the black hole is not perpendicular to the binary orbital plane. They can also become eccentric through an instability involving a resonance with the…
Dissipative dark matter, where dark matter particles interact with a massless (or very light) boson, is studied. Such dark matter can arise in simple hidden sector gauge models, including those featuring an unbroken $U(1)'$ gauge symmetry,…
Hydrodynamic simulations suggest that galactic gas disks form when coplanar gas spirals into the inner regions of the disk. We recently presented a simple "modified accretion disk" model of viscous galactic disks in which star-formation is…
The nature of the dark matter in the halo of our Galaxy is still largely unknown. The microlensing events found so far towards the Large Magellanic Cloud suggest that at most about 20% of the halo dark matter is in the form of MACHOs…
During the growth of a cold dark matter halo, the direction of its spin can undergo rapid changes. These could disrupt or even destroy a stellar disc forming in the halo, possibly resulting in the generation of a bulge or spheroid. We…
In the past years a wealth of observations has allowed us to unravel the structural properties of the Dark and Luminous mass distribution in spirals. As result, it has been found that their rotation curves follow, out their virial radius,…
Spiral galaxies comprise three major structural components; thin discs, thick discs, and central bulges. Relative dominance of these components is known to correlate with the total mass of the galaxy, and produces a remarkable morphological…
Accretion discs are present around both stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries and supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei. A wide variety of circumstantial evidence implies that many of these discs are warped. The standard…
We investigate the possibility that the observed rotation of galaxies can be accounted for by invoking a massive baryonic disc with no need for non-baryonic dark matter or a massive halo. There are 5 primary reasons for suggesting this: 1.…
In the past years a wealth of observations has unraveled the structural properties of the Dark and Luminous mass distribution in spirals. These have pointed out to an intriguing scenario not easily explained by present theories of galaxy…
I discuss the dynamical interaction of galactic disks with the surrounding dark matter halos. In particular it is demonstrated that if the self-gravitating shearing sheet, a model of a patch of a galactic disk, is embedded in a live dark…
The interaction between a planet located in the inner region of a disc and the warped outer region is studied. We consider the stage of evolution after the planet has cleared-out a gap, so that the planetary orbit evolves only under the…
Galaxy disks evolve through angular momentum transfers between sub-components, like gas, stars, or dark matter halos, through non axi-symmetric instabilities. The speed of this evolution is boosted in presence of a large fraction of cold…
The origin of metal-rich, highly flattened, and rapidly rotating disk globular cluster system in the Galaxy is one of longstanding issues in the context of the Galaxy formation. Our numerical simulations suggest a new ``two-fold'' scenario…
The origin of large-scale magnetic fields, detected in some low-mass (dwarf and irregular) galaxies via polarised synchrotron emission and Faraday rotation, remained unexplained for a long time. We suggest that mean-field dynamo can be…
Density waves in the central kpc of galaxies, taking the form of spirals, bars and/or lopsided density distributions, are potential actors of the redistribution of angular momentum. They may thus play an important role in the overall…
Gravitational coupling between planets and protoplanetary discs is responsible for many important phenomena such as planet migration and gap formation. The key quantitative characteristics of this coupling is the excitation torque density…