Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2005-09-12
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
4 pages, To appear in the proceedings of the "Island Universes: Structure and Evolution of Disk Galaxies" conference held in T
Scientific paper
Galactic warps represent an old unresolved problem, since the discovery, at the end of the fifties, of the HI warp of the Milky Way. In this paper, we propose a new scenario explaining a large fraction of the observed optical warps. Based on N-body simulations, we show that realistic galactic disks, where the dark matter is essentially distributed in a disk, are subject to bending instabilities. S, U-shaped, as well as asymmetric warps are spontaneously generated and in some cases are long-lived. While this scenario presents the advantage of explaining the three observed types of warps, it also brings new constraints on the dark matter distribution in spiral galaxies. Finally, it gives us a unified picture of galaxies where galactic asymmetries, like bars, spirals and warps result from gravitational instabilities.
Pfenniger Daniel
Revaz Yves
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