Theoretical astrophysics and plasma physics at RPC

Abstract:

It is argued that galaxies like ours sustain their star formation by transferring gas from an extensive corona to the star-forming disc. The transfer is effected by the galactic fountain -- cool clouds that are shot up from the plane to kiloparsec heights above the plane. The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability strips gas from these clouds. If the pressure and the the metallicity of the corona are high enough, the stripped gas causes a similar mass of coronal gas to condense in the cloud's wake. Hydrodynamical simulations of cloud-corona interaction are presented. These confirm the existence of a critical ablation rate above which the corona is condensed, and imply that for the likely parameters of the Galactic corona this rate lies near the actual ablation rate of clouds. In external galaxies trails of HI behind individual clouds will not be detectable, although the integrated emission from all such trails should be significant. Parts of the trails of the clouds that make up the Galaxy's fountain should be observable and may account for features in targeted 21-cm observations of individual high-velocity clouds and surveys of Galactic HI emission. Taken in conjunction with the known decline in the availability of cold infall with increasing cosmic time and halo mass, the proposed mechanism offers a promising explanation of the division of galaxies between the blue cloud to the red sequence in the colour-luminosity plane.

Abstract:

Star-forming disc galaxies such as the Milky Way need to accrete $\gsim$ 1 $M_{\odot}$ of gas each year to sustain their star formation. This gas accretion is likely to come from the cooling of the hot corona, however it is still not clear how this process can take place. We present simulations supporting the idea that this cooling and the subsequent accretion are caused by the passage of cold galactic-fountain clouds through the hot corona. The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability strips gas from these clouds and the stripped gas causes coronal gas to condense in the cloud's wake. For likely parameters of the Galactic corona and of typical fountain clouds we obtain a global accretion rate of the order of that required to feed the star formation.

Abstract:

Analytic distribution functions (DFs) for the Galactic disc are discussed. The DFs depend on action variables and their predictions for observable quantities are explored under the assumption that the motion perpendicular to the Galactic plane is adiabatically invariant during motion within the plane. A promising family of DFs is defined that has several adjustable parameters. A standard DF is identified by adjusting these parameters to optimize fits to the stellar density in the column above the Sun, and to the velocity distribution of nearby stars and stars ∼1 kpc above the Sun. The optimum parameters imply a radial structure for the disc which is consistent with photometric studies of the Milky Way and similar galaxies, and that 20 per cent of the disc's luminosity comes from thick disc. The fits suggest that the value of the V component of the Sun's peculiar velocity should be revised upwards from 5.2 to ∼11 km s-1. It is argued that the standard DF provides a significantly more reliable way to divide solar-neighbourhood stars into members of the thin and thick discs than is currently used. The standard DF provides predictions for surveys of stars observed at any distance from the Sun. It is anticipated that DFs of the type discussed here will provide useful starting points for much more sophisticated chemo-dynamical models of the Milky Way. © 2009 RAS.

Abstract:

In this paper, we show that the eccentricity of a planet on an inclined orbit with respect to a disc can be pumped up to high values by the gravitational potential of the disc, even when the orbit of the planet crosses the disc plane. This process is an extension of the Kozai effect. If the orbit of the planet is well inside the disc inner cavity, the process is formally identical to the classical Kozai effect. If the planet's orbit crosses the disc but most of the disc mass is beyond the orbit, the eccentricity of the planet grows when the initial angle between the orbit and the disc is larger than some critical value which may be significantly smaller than the classical value of 39{ring operator}. Both the eccentricity and the inclination angle then vary periodically with time. When the period of the oscillations of the eccentricity is smaller than the disc lifetime, the planet may be left on an eccentric orbit as the disc dissipates. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation. © 2010 RAS.