A dynamical instability of bars in disk galaxies

Details A dynamical instability of bars in disk galaxies A dynamical instability of bars in disk galaxies

Aug 1991

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991natur.352..411r&link_type=abstract

Nature (ISSN 0028-0836), vol. 352, Aug. 1, 1991, p. 411, 412. Research supported by SERC.

Statistics

Computation

230

Disk Galaxies, Dynamic Stability, Galactic Structure, Computational Astrophysics, Galactic Bulge, Stellar Systems, Three Dimensional Models

Scientific paper

Strong, rapidly rotating, persistent bars readily form in numerical simulations of initially axisymmetric disk galaxies, while most galaxies in the sky do not possess a strong bar. The results of 3D simulations are presented here which show that the bar is dynamically unstable to buckling out of the galactic plane. Stars acquire large motions normal to the plane, giving the bar a peanut shape through a mechanism suggested here to be the fire-house instability. Bars may be weakened or even destroyed by this instability; thus the fraction of disk galaxies containing strong bars today could be lower than the fraction in which they have formed in the past. The instability may also account for the peanut morphology of many galaxies, and because it leads to a less flattened stellar system with increased central density, it may play a part in the formation of galactic bulges.

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