Physics
Scientific paper
Sep 1994
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994ap%26ss.219...77s&link_type=abstract
Astrophysics and Space Science (ISSN 0004-640X), vol. 219, no. 1, p. 77-98
Physics
2
Disk Galaxies, Electromagnetic Fields, Field Theory (Physics), Interacting Galaxies, Interstellar Magnetic Fields, Mathematical Models, Morphology, Spiral Galaxies, Galactic Bulge, Galactic Mass, Potential Fields, Red Shift, Topology
Scientific paper
We propose an Abelian Higgs model for spiral galaxies in which the latter are treated as topologically stable magnetic vorto-sources (-sinks). The model is characterized by the minimum coupling between the electromagnetic vector potential and a scalar, complex-valued Higgs field that results - for an idealized cylindrically symmetric case - in a perpendicular to the galaxy's plane distribution of magnetic field strength whose total flux is a discrete-valued quantity - an integer multiple of the elementary flux unit. Adopting the hypothesis that spiral arms trace the curves of a constant phase of the Higgs field we demonstrate that, for an 'almost-everywhere' divergence-free vector potential, the arms acquire the observationally well-established form of logarithmic spirals whose woundness is here of an 'electromagnetic' origin in the sense that it depends on the ratio between the specific volume-divergence of a galaxy and its total magnetic flux. The hypothesis further implies that the number of spiral arms is just twice as that of magnetic flux quanta a galaxy possesses; the observed preponderance of two-armed spirals then simply reflects the fact that most galaxies carry single flux quantum which is energetically favorable for the vorto-sources (-sinks) whose disk-to-bulge radius ratio mho greater than 1. The latter property also leads to the process of galaxy fragmentation in the sense that a galaxy endowed with p magnetic flux quanta should fission into the topologically equivalent configuration consisting of p singly-quantized galaxies. A unique possibility to test our model is provided by physically paired galaxies. Finally, we address the question of the periodicity in the distribution of galaxy redshifts and show that a discrete-valuedness of the mass of spiral galaxies resulting from our model may serve as a starting point to solve this puzzling effect.
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