Disc distortion revisited

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Binney, James
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Binney, James
author_facet Binney, James
contents We revisit the dynamics of razor-thin, stone-cold, self-gravitating discs. By recasting the equations into standard cylindrical coordinates, the linearised vertical dynamics of an exponential disc can be followed for several gigayears on a laptop in a few minutes. An initially warped disc rapidly evolves into a flat inner region and an outward-propagating spiral corrugation wave that rapidly winds up and would quickly thicken a disc with non-zero radial velocity dispersion. The Sgr dwarf galaxy generates a similar warp in the Galactic disc as it passes through pericentre, and the warp generated by the dwarf's last pericentre ~ 35 Myr ago is remarkably similar to the warp traced by the Galaxy's HI disc. The resemblance to the observed warp is fleeting but its timing is perfect. For the adopted parameters the amplitude of the model warp is a factor 3 too small, but there are several reasons for this being so. The marked flaring of our Galaxy's low-alpha disc just outside the solar circle can be explained as a legacy of earlier pericentres.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_04879
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Disc distortion revisited
Binney, James
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We revisit the dynamics of razor-thin, stone-cold, self-gravitating discs. By recasting the equations into standard cylindrical coordinates, the linearised vertical dynamics of an exponential disc can be followed for several gigayears on a laptop in a few minutes. An initially warped disc rapidly evolves into a flat inner region and an outward-propagating spiral corrugation wave that rapidly winds up and would quickly thicken a disc with non-zero radial velocity dispersion. The Sgr dwarf galaxy generates a similar warp in the Galactic disc as it passes through pericentre, and the warp generated by the dwarf's last pericentre ~ 35 Myr ago is remarkably similar to the warp traced by the Galaxy's HI disc. The resemblance to the observed warp is fleeting but its timing is perfect. For the adopted parameters the amplitude of the model warp is a factor 3 too small, but there are several reasons for this being so. The marked flaring of our Galaxy's low-alpha disc just outside the solar circle can be explained as a legacy of earlier pericentres.
title Disc distortion revisited
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.04879