Laboratory plasmas and the galactic spiral arms

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

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Astronomical Models, Galactic Evolution, Galactic Rotation, Galactic Structure, Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability, Milky Way Galaxy, Rotating Plasmas, Magnetohydrodynamic Stability, Plasma Control, Plasma Cylinders, Spiral Galaxies

Scientific paper

The present work compares the results of an experiment, in which a Kelvin-Helmholtz (K-H) instability in a rotating cylindrical plasma column was observed to take the form of two spiral arms, with theoretical calculations of an evolutionary model of the Galaxy in which the onset of a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is predicted. The analysis makes use of the Richardson condition for Kelvin-Helmholtz stability in a gravitational field. Although the growth and persistence of the spiral arms after onset of the K-H instability lie outside the valid range of K-H analysis, the hypothesis of a K-H instability for the origin of the galactic spiral structure stands the test of a first-order numerical check and seems to scale well with the experiment.

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