The structure of gravitationally unstable gas-rich disk galaxies

Abstract

We use a series of idealized, numerical smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations to study the formation and evolution of galactic, gas-rich disks forming from gas infall within dark matter halos. The temperature and density structure of the gas is varied in order to differentiate between (1) simultaneous gas infall at a large range of radii and (2) the inside-out buildup of a disk. In all cases, the disks go through phases of ring formation, gravitational instability and break-up into massive clumps. Ring formation can be enhanced by a focal point effect. The position of the ring is determined by the angular momentum distribution of the material it forms from. We study the ring and clump morphologies, the characteristic properties of the resulting velocity dispersion field and the effect of star formation. In the early phases, gas accretion leads to a high vertical velocity dispersion. We find that the disk fragmentation by gravitational instability and the subsequent clump-clump interactions drive high velocity dispersions mainly in the plane of the disk while at the same time the vertical velocity dispersion dissipates. The result is a strong variation of the line-of-sight velocity dispersion with inclination angle. For a face-on view, clumps appear as minima in the (vertical) dispersion, whereas for a more edge-on view, they tend to correspond to maxima. There exists observational evidence of a systematic variation of the velocity dispersion with inclination angle in high-redshift disks, which could be partly explained by our simulation results. Additional energetic sources to drive velocity dispersion that are not included in our models are also expected to contribute to the observational results. © 2010. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.