Stability and Damping in the Disks of Massive Galaxies

Abstract

After their initial formation, disk galaxies are observed to be rotationally stable over periods of >6 Gyr, implying that any large velocity disturbances of stars and gas clouds are damped rapidly on the timescale of their rotation. However, it is also known that despite this damping, there must be a degree of random local motion to stabilize the orbits against degenerate collapse. A mechanism for such damping is proposed by a combination of inter-stellar gravitational interactions, and interactions with the Oort clouds and exo-Oort objects associated with each star. These mechanisms may produce rapid damping of large perturbations within a time period that is short on the scale of observational look-back time, but long on the scale of the disk rotational period for stars with small perturbations. This mechanism may also account for the locally observed mean perturbations in the Milky Way of 8–15 km/s for younger stars and 20–30 km/s for older stars.