Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wtssw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-17T22:25:01.960Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Stability of Elliptical Galaxies. Numerical Experiments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2017

David Merritt
David Merritt*
Affiliation:
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1, Canada

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The idea that dynamical instabilities might play an important role in determining the equilibrium structure of elliptical galaxies is a startling one, especially to those of us who are accustomed to associating instabilities with rapidly-rotating systems like disk galaxies. The shock is even greater when we learn that these instabilities have been taken seriously by workers in the Soviet Union for a long time. As Dr. Polyachenko points out in his talk, instabilities affecting spherical, non-rotating galaxies were being discussed by Soviet astronomers as long ago as 1972. Much of this work has recently become more accessible through the publication of an English-language version of Fridman and Polyachenko's monograph, Physics of Gravitating Systems (Fridman and Polyachenko 1984). In the West, it appears that only two people were prescient enough to systematically test the stability of spherical models before learning of the Soviet work (Hénon 1973; Barnes 1985). In particular, Barnes discovered independently that a spherical system composed of predominantly radial orbits evolves rapidly into a bar. Subsequent work has demonstrated that even some mildly anisotropic models can be unstable in this way.

Type
Invited Reviews
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 127: Structure and Dynamics of Elliptical Galaxies , 1987 , pp. 315 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1987 

References

REFERENCES

Aarseth, S. J., and Binney, J., 1978. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 185, 227.Google Scholar
Agekyan, T. A., 1961. Leningrad University Bulletin, 1, 152.Google Scholar
Antonov, V. A., 1960. Astr. Zh., 37, 918 (translated in Soviet Astron., 4, 859).Google Scholar
Antonov, V. A., 1962. Vestnik Leningrad Univ., 19, 96 (translated in Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. Rept. PPl-Trans-1).Google Scholar
Antonov, V. A., 1973. In: The Dynamics of Galaxies and Star Clusters, p. 139, ed. Omarov, G. B., Nauka, Alma Ata (in Russian).Google Scholar
Barnes, J., 1985. In: Dynamics of Star Clusters, IAU Symposium No. 114, p. 297, ed. Goodman, J. and Hut, P., Reidel, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Barnes, J., Goodman, J., and Hut, P., 1986. Astrophys. J., 300, 112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bisnovatyi-Kogan, G. S., Zel'dovich, Ya. B., and Fridman, A. M., 1968. Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR, 182, 794 (translated in Soviet Physics-Doklady, 13, 969).Google Scholar
Dejonghe, H., 1986. Physics Reports, 133, 217.Google Scholar
Dejonghe, H., 1987. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 224, 13.Google Scholar
Doremus, J. P., and Feix, M. R., 1973. Astron. Astrophys., 29, 401.Google Scholar
Fridman, A. M., and Polyachenko, V. L., 1984. Physics of Gravitating Systems, volumes 1 and 2, Springer-Verlag, New York.Google Scholar
Gillon, D., Doremus, J. P., and Baumann, G., 1976. Astron. Astrophys., 48, 467.Google Scholar
Hénon, M., 1959. Annales d'Astrophysique, 22, 126.Google Scholar
Hénon, M., 1973. Astron. Astrophys., 24, 229.Google Scholar
Jaffe, W., 1983. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 202, 995.Google Scholar
Jeans, J. H., 1929. Astronomy and Cosmogony, 2nd ed., Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, England.Google Scholar
Kalnajs, A. J., 1977. Astrophys. J., 212, 637.Google Scholar
King, I. R., 1966. Astron. J., 71, 64.Google Scholar
Lynden-Bell, D., 1979. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 187, 101.Google Scholar
McGlynn, T. A., 1984. Astrophys. J., 281, 13.Google Scholar
Merritt, D., 1985. Astron. J., 90, 1027.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merritt, D., 1986. In preparation.Google Scholar
Merritt, D., and Aguilar, L. A., 1985. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 217, 787.Google Scholar
Newton, A. J., and Binney, J., 1984. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 210, 711.Google Scholar
Palmer, P. L., and Papaloizou, J., 1987. This volume, p. 515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polyachenko, V. L., 1981. Pis'ma Astron. Zh., 7, 142 (translated in Soviet Astron. Lett., 7, 79).Google Scholar
Polyachenko, V. L., 1985. Astronomicheskii Tsirkuliar, No. 1405 (in Russian).Google Scholar
Richstone, D. O., and Tremaine, S., 1984. Astrophys. J., 286, 27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richstone, D. O., and Tremaine, S., 1985. Astrophys. J., 296, 370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellwood, J. A., 1983. J. Comp. Phys., 50, 337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sygnet, J. F., Des Forets, G., Lachieze-Rey, M., and Pellat, R., 1984. Astrophys. J., 276, 737.Google Scholar
Toomre, A., 1964. Astrophys. J., 139, 1217.Google Scholar
van Albada, T. S., 1982. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 201, 939.Google Scholar