Non-linear corrugation waves in spiral galaxies

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
We report numerical computations of non-linear corrugation waves in the gas disc of a spiral galaxy. To obtain a tractable problem the set of fully three-dimensional hydrodynamic equations is reduced to a set of equations in two space dimensions by assuming that the global morphology of the corrugations is spiral, and then employing the tightly wound spiral approximation. The results indicate that the corrugation may be dynamically very significant, leading to a strong variation in the gas density across the galactic disc. A corrugation which is singly periodic in azimuth produces a doubly periodic density enhancement, and the response can be strong enough to form a two-arm spiral shock.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: