No Arabic abstract
We investigate the Jeans instability of a galactic disk embedded in a dynamically responsive dark halo. It is shown that the disk-halo system becomes nominally Jeans unstable. On small scales the instability is suppressed, if the Toomre stability index Q_T is higher than a certain threshold, but on large scales the Jeans instability sets invariably in. However, using a simple self-consistent disk-halo model it is demonstrated that this occurs on scales which are much larger than the system so that this is indeed only a nominal effect. From a practical point of view the Jeans instability of galactic disks is not affected by a live dark halo.
The well known Jeans instability is studied for a viscoelastic, gravitational fluid using generalized hydrodynamic equations of motions. It is found that the threshold for the onset of instability appears at higher wavelengths in a viscoelastic medium. Elastic effects playing a role similar to thermal pressure are found to lower the growth rate of the gravitational instability. Such features may manifest themselves in matter constituting dense astrophysical objects.
We analyze the effect of a gravitational field on the sound modes of superfluids. We derive an instability condition that generalizes the well known Jeans instability of the sound mode in normal fluids. We discuss potential experimental implications.
The reaction of collective oscillations excited in the interaction between aperiodically growing Jeans-type gravity perturbations and stars of a rapidly rotating disk of flat galaxies is considered. An equation is derived which describes the change in the main body of equilibrium distribution of stars in the framework of the nonresonant weakly nonlinear theory. Certain applications of the theory to the problem of relaxation of the Milky Way at radii where two-body relaxation is not effective are explored. The theory, as applied to the Solar neighborhood, accounts for observed features, such as the shape for the velocity ellipsoid of stars and the increase in star random velocities with age.
Until recently it was thought that high Galactic latitude clouds were a non-star-forming ensemble. However, in a previous study we reported the discovery of two embedded clusters (ECs) far away from the Galactic plane ($sim5$ kpc). In our recent star cluster catalogue we provided additional high and intermediate latitude cluster candidates. This work aims to clarify if our previous detection of star clusters far away from the disc represents just an episodic event or if the star cluster formation is currently a systematic phenomenon in the Galactic halo. We analyse the nature of four clusters found in our recent catalogue and report the discovery of three new ECs with unusually high latitude and distance from the Galactic disc midplane. All of these clusters are younger than 5 Myr. The high-latitude ECs C 932, C 934, and C 939 appear to be related to a cloud complex about 5 kpc below the Galactic disc, under the Local arm. The other clusters are above the disc, C 1074 and C 1100 with a vertical distance of $sim3$ kpc, C 1099 with $sim2$ kpc, and C 1101 with $sim1.8$ kpc. According to the derived parameters there occur ECs located below and above the disc, which is an evidence of widespread star cluster formation throughout the Galactic halo. Thus, this study represents a paradigm shift, in the sense that a sterile halo becomes now a host of ongoing star formation. The origin and fate of these ECs remain open. There are two possibilities for their origin, Galactic fountain or infall. The discovery of ECs far from the disc suggests that the Galactic halo is more actively forming stars than previously thought and since most ECs do not survive the textit{infant mortality} it may be raining stars from the halo into the disc, and/or the halo harbours generations of stars formed in clusters like those hereby detected.
In order to address the question of whether spiral disturbances in galaxy discs are gravitationally coupled to the halo, we conduct simulations of idealized models of disc galaxies. We compare growth rates of spiral instabilities in identical mass models in which the halo is held rigid or is represented by particles drawn from an equilibrium distribution function. We examine cases of radial and azimuthal bias in the halo velocity ellipsoid in one of our models, and an isotropic velocity distribution in both. We find at most marginal evidence for an enhanced growth rate of spiral modes caused by a halo supporting response. We also find evidence for very mild dynamical friction between the spiral disturbance and the halo. We offer an explanation to account for the different behaviour between spiral modes and bar modes, since earlier work had found that bar instabilities became significantly more vigorous when a responsive halo was substituted for an equivalent rigid mass distribution. The barely significant differences found here justify the usual simplifying approximation of a rigid halo made in studies of spiral instabilities in galaxies.