Publication Date

2001

Journal or Book Title

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

Abstract

We present a theory for describing the evolution of a galaxy caused by stochastic events such as weak mergers, transient spiral structure, orbiting blobs, etc. This noise excites large-scale patterns that drive the evolution of the galactic density profile. In a dark matter halo, the repeated stochastic perturbations preferentially ring the lowest-order modes with only a very weak dependence on the details of their source. The subsequent redistribution of halo mass is determined only by the mechanics of these modes. The halo profile then evolves toward a universal asymptotic form for a wide variety of noise sources. Such a convergence may help explain the similarity of normal galaxy morphology in diverse environments. A variety of other applications are discussed.

Comments

This is a pre-published version which is collected from arXiv link. The published version is at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.04883.x/abstract

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.04883.x

Pages

311-320

Volume

328

Issue

1

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