Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie
STEPHEN PHILLIPS hostreviews.co.uk / UNSPLASH

On the Physical Origin of Radial Surface Density Profiles in Disk Galaxies

Jakob Herpich , MPIA

Stellar disks are observed to have near-exponential light profiles. More recent deeper observations reveal that many galaxies actually have a two-component exponential profile: truncated and anti-truncated disks. I present results from simulations of isolated disk galaxies that are able to reproduce all of these profiles and show that they correlate with the initial distribution of baryonic angular momentum in the host halo. I find that the formation mechanism of truncated disks is consistent with previous results and link the formation of anti-truncated disks to radial heating of stellar orbits by a strong and persistent central bar. Additionally, I derive an analytic formula for the radial stellar surface density profile using methods of statistical physics.

ITA "blackboard" Colloquium
24 Apr 2017, 11:15
Philosophenweg, 12, 106

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