« Exploring the linear stability of flattened galactic disks using Stäckel potentials »
The diversity among galaxies showcases a broad spectrum of mass and angular momentum distributions. During formation, gravitational forces drive these celestial bodies to collapse, acquiring angular momentum via torques. Thanks to dissipation, the result post virialization is typically a flattened rotating structure. Understanding how this geometry and kinematics affects the response of galaxies is important to explain their long-term evolution.
Such endeavor has been attempted through costly N-body simulations. However, a worthy alternative is to follow the path of Kalnajs and compute the linear response of such systems. Historically, the complexity of studying generic three-dimensional systems posed significant challenges (six-dimensional phase space fully coupled via self-gravity). However, modern computers can now model more complex shapes or kinematics, opening the prospects of also extending our understanding beyond the spherical or razor thin geometries.