Journal
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
Volume 390, Issue 3, Pages L35-L38Publisher
EDP SCIENCES S A
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20020961
Keywords
galaxies : fundamental parameters; galaxies : individual : NGC 891, NGC 4565; galaxies : kinematics and dynamics; galaxies : photometry; galaxies : spiral; galaxies : structure
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
For the past twenty years, it has been accepted that the vertical scaleheight of the stellar disk in spiral galaxies is constant with radius. However, there is no clear physical explanation for this in the literature. Here we calculate the vertical stellar scaleheight for a self-gravitating stellar disk including the additional gravitational force of the HI and H-2 gas and the dark matter halo. We apply our model to two edge-on galaxies, NGC 891 and NGC 4565, and find that the resulting scaleheight shows a linear increase of nearly a factor of two within the optical disk for both these galaxies. Interestingly, we show that the observed data when looked at closely, do not imply a constant scaleheight but actually support this moderate flaring in scaleheight.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available