University of Southern California

Morphology and Galaxy Dynamics

Pedro J. Llanos
Astronautical Engineering Department llanos@usc.edu
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Project Objective:
We studied the dynamics of galaxies using a planar nbody simulation. Some of these galaxies have several spiral arms in the case of a spiral galaxy or spokes between the outer and inner rings in the case of a spherical galaxy which are thought to be invariant manifolds of unstable periodic orbits around the Lagrange points (see Romero-Gmez et al.). This is a new dynamical systems explanation for how material flows between these arms and the bulge of a galaxy and between spherical rings.

Results:
This research focused on a preliminary study of morphology and dynamics of stellar clusters and galaxies. We chose a simple Newtonian model where every particle of unity mass feels the force by the n-1 particles. In this simulation (see Fig.1) we saw that there is a flow of stars transferring from the bulge of the galaxy to the corotating zone forming spiral arms. These arms cannot last for ever and due to the different inner and outer torques in the spiral arms, the arms tend to become bars as time evolves forming other structures such as rings, spurs and arm bifurcations. In the second simulation (see Fig. 2) we also appreciated an exchange of material transferred via a network of spokes that connect the rings. This transport behaves like a pulse with wavefronts expanding and contracting material between these rings. After some time the outer ring will dissipate and material will fall back towards the center of the galaxy which eventually will expand again forming a new outer ring and new spokes. This is a nascent field of research with many ideas and approaches which may be brought to bear on many of the unsolved problems in galactic dynamics and globular cluster dynamics via the invariant manifold theory.

Significance of the results:

Understanding how matter flows within a galaxy has reinvigorated the study of dynamical systems such as galaxies and star clusters. Similar to the three body problem, the n-body gravitational problem is chaotic. This study is relevant to further understand the internal structure of galaxies and be able to explain the observations and the universality of the luminosity profile of elliptical galaxies. Moreover, this research will also enable us to explain the dynamics similarities with respect to that from the electromagnetic plasmas and the different processes that trigger star formation and stellar nurseries.

In the left column (Fig.1), we show the simulations of a spiral galaxy with 2500 stars. The initial formation is randomly distributed with an ellipticity of 0.1. After some time the formation evolved to a spiral structure with two main arms and other relevant features such as a bar, an outer and inner rings. Middle: We found non-periodic orbits (black) that connect the spiral arms and quasi-periodic orbits (blue) formed around the ring. Magenta and cyan represent smaller orbits perpendicular to the bar. Bottom: Irregular orbits (green and blue) that tend to elongate towards the ends of the bar bringing material outwardly when reaching the quasiperiodic orbit formed around the inner ring (black).

In the right column (Fig.2), we show the simulations of a spherical galaxy with 3500 stars. The initial formation is randomly distributed with an ellipticity of 1.0. After some time the formation evolved to a spherical structure with an outer and inner rings. Middle: Rings connected by network of spokes. The small arrows show the direction of the moving material between the rings. These spokes tend to dissipate when ring structure contracts or expands. Bottom: Non-periodic orbits (blue and green) formed around smaller concentric rings. These rings are usually called nuclear rings due to their proximity to the galaxy nucleus. We show some chaotic orbits (magenta) which transfer material between these rings.

Figure 1

References:
M. Romero-Gmez, E. Athanassoula, J.J. Masdemont, C. Garcia-Gmez. The formation of spiral arms and rings in barred galaxies, Astronomy & Astrophysics 2008.

Figure 1
Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.

Figure 2