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Register a new userGlobal m=1 instabilities and lopsidedness in disc galaxies
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Lopsidedness is common in spiral galaxies. Often, there is no obvious external cause, such as an interaction with a nearby galaxy, for such features. Alternatively, the lopsidedness may have an internal cause, such as a dynamical instability. In order to explore this idea, we have developed a computer code that searches for self-consistent perturbations in razor-thin disc galaxies and performed a thorough mode-analysis of a suite of dynamical models for disc galaxies embedded in an inert dark-matter halo with varying amounts of rotation and radial anisotropy. Models with two equal-mass counter-rotating discs and fully rotating models both show growing lopsided modes. For the counter-rotating models, this is the well-known counter-rotating instability, becoming weaker as the net rotation increases. The m=1 mode of the maximally rotating models, on the other hand, becomes stronger with increasing net rotation. This rotating m=1 mode is reminiscent of the eccentricity instability in near-Keplerian discs. To unravel the physical origin of these two different m=1 instabilities, we studied the individual stellar orbits in the perturbed potential and found that the presence of the perturbation gives rise to a very rich orbital behaviour. In the linear regime, both instabilities are supported by aligned loop orbits. In the non-linear regime, other orbit families exist that can help support the modes. In terms of density waves, the counter-rotating m=1 mode is due to a purely growing Jeans-type instability. The rotating m=1 mode, on the other hand, grows as a result of the swing amplifier working inside the resonance cavity that extends from the disc center out to the radius where non-rotating waves are stabilized by the models outwardly rising Q-profile.
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The distribution of stars and gas in many galaxies is asymmetric. This so-called lopsidedness is expected to significantly affect the dynamics and evolution of the disc, including the star formation activity. Here, we measure the degree of lopsidedness for the gas distribution in a selected sample of 70 galaxies from the Westerbork HI Survey of Spiral and Irregular Galaxies. This complements our earlier work (Paper I) where the kinematic lopsidedness was derived for the same galaxies. The morphological lopsidedness is measured by performing a harmonic decomposition of the surface density maps. The amplitude of lopsidedness A_1, the fractional value of the first Fourier component, is typically quite high (about 0.1) within the optical disc and has a constant phase. Thus, lopsidedness is a common feature in galaxies and indicates a global mode. We measure A_1 out to typically one to four optical radii, sometimes even further. This is, on average, four times larger than the distance to which lopsidedness was measured in the past using near-IR as a tracer for the old stellar component, and will therefore provide a new, more stringent constraint on the mechanism for the origin of lopsidedness. Interestingly, the value of A_1 saturates beyond the optical radius. Furthermore, the plot of A_1 vs. radius shows fluctuations which we argue are due to local spiral features. We also try to explain the physical origin of this observed disc lopsidedness. No clear trend is found when the degree of lopsidedness is compared to a measure of the isolation or interaction probability of the sample galaxies. However, this does not rule out a tidal origin if the lopsidedness is long-lived. Additionally, we find that the early-type galaxies tend to be more morphologically lopsided than late-type galaxies. Both results together indicate a tidal origin for the lopsidedness.
The frequently observed lopsidedness of the distribution of stars and gas in disc galaxies is still considered as a major problem in galaxy dynamics. It is even discussed as an imprint of the formation history of discs and the evolution of baryons in dark matter haloes. Here, we analyse a selected sample of 70 galaxies from the Westerbork HI Survey of Spiral and Irregular Galaxies. The HI data allow us to follow the morphology and the kinematics out to very large radii. In the present paper, we present the rotation curves and study the kinematic asymmetry. We extract the rotation curves of receding and approaching sides separately and show that the kinematic behaviour of disc galaxies can be classified by five different types: symmetric velocity fields where the rotation curves of receding and approaching sides are almost identical; global distortions where the rotation velocities of receding and approaching side have an offset which is constant with radius; local distortions which lead to large deviations in the inner and negligible deviations in the outer parts (and vice versa); and distortions which split the galaxies into two kinematic systems, visible in the different behaviour of the rotation curves of receding and approaching sides, which leads to a crossing and a change in side. The kinematic lopsidedness is measured from the maximum rotation velocities, averaged over the plateau of the rotation curves. This gives a good estimate of global lopsidedness in the outer parts of the sample galaxies. We find that the mean value of the perturbation parameter denoting the lopsided potential as obtained from the kinematic data is 0.056. 36% of all sample galaxies are globally lopsided, which can be interpreted as the disc responding to a halo that was distorted by a tidal encounter. In Paper II, we study the morphological lopsidedness for the same sample of galaxies.
It has long been known that a large fraction of disc galaxies are lopsided. We simulate three different mechanisms that can induce lopsidedness: flyby interactions, gas accretion from cosmological filaments and ram pressure from the intergalactic medium. Comparing the morphologies, HI spectrum and m=1 Fourier components, we find that all of these mechanisms can induce lopsidedness in the gaseous component of disc galaxies. In particular, we estimate that flybys can contribute to ~20 per cent of lopsided galaxies. We compare our simulations with the observations of NGC 891, a lopsided, edge-on galaxy with a nearby companion (UGC 1807). We find that the main properties of NGC 891 favour a flyby event for the origin of lopsidedness in this galaxy.
We measure the non-axisymmetry in the luminosity distribution in the central few kpc of a sample of advanced mergers of galaxies, by analyzing their 2MASS images. All mergers show a high central asymmetry: the centres of isophotes show a striking sloshing pattern with a spatial variation of upto 30 % within the central 1 kpc; and the Fourier amplitude for lopsidedness (m=1) shows high values upto 0.2 within the central 5 kpc. The central asymmetry is estimated to be long-lived, lasting for ~ a few Gyr or ~ 100 local dynamical timescales. This will significantly affect the dynamical evolution of this region, by helping fuel the central active galactic nucleus, and also by causing the secular growth of the bulge driven by lopsidedness.
Magnetic fields are an elemental part of the interstellar medium in galaxies. However, their impact on gas dynamics and star formation in galaxies remains controversial. We use a suite of global magnetohydrodynamical simulations of isolated disc galaxies to study the influence of magnetic fields on the diffuse and dense gas in the discs. We find that the magnetic field acts in multiple ways. Stronger magnetised discs fragment earlier due to the shorter growth time of the Parker instability. Due to the Parker instability in the magnetised discs we also find cold ($T<50,mathrm{K}$) and dense ($nsim10^3-10^4,mathrm{cm}^{-3}$) gas several hundred pc above/below the midplane without any form of stellar feedback. In addition, magnetic fields change the fragmentation pattern. While in the hydrodynamical case, the disc breaks up into ring-like structures, magnetised discs show the formation of filamentary entities that extent both in the azimuthal and radial direction. These kpc scale filaments become magnetically (super-)critical very quickly and allow for the rapid formation of massive giant molecular clouds. Our simulations suggest that major differences in the behaviour of star formation - due to a varying magnetisation - in galaxies could arise.
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