English

Structure, mass and stability of galactic disks

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2015-05-18 v1

Abstract

In this review I concentrate on three areas related to structure of disks in spiral galaxies. First I will review the work on structure, kinematics and dynamics of stellar disks. Next I will review the progress in the area of flaring of HI layers. These subjects are relevant for the presence of dark matter and lead to the conclusion that disk are in general not `maximal', have lower M/L ratios than previously suspected and are locally stable w.r.t. Toomre's Q criterion for local stability. I will end with a few words on `truncations' in stellar disks.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1004.4747,
  title  = {Structure, mass and stability of galactic disks},
  author = {P. C. van der Kruit},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1004.4747},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

Invited review at "Galaxies and their Masks" for Ken Freeman's 70-th birthday, Sossusvlei, Namibia, April 2010. A version with high-res. figures is available at http://www.astro.rug.nl/~vdkruit/jea3/homepage/Namibiachapter.pdf

R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:15:20.725Z