Bibcode
López-Corredoira, M.; Betancort-Rijo, J.; Beckman, J. E.
Bibliographical reference
Pathways Through an Eclectic Universe ASP Conference Series, Vol. 390, proceedings of the conference held 23-27 April, 2007 at Santiago del Teide, Tenerife, Spain. Edited by J. H. Knapen, T. J. Mahoney, and A. Vazdekis San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2008., p.359
Advertised on:
6
2008
Citations
2
Refereed citations
2
Description
The accretion of the intergalactic medium onto the gaseous disc is used
to explain the generation of galactic warps. A cup-shaped distortion is
expected, due to the transmission of the linear momentum; but, this
effect is small for most incident inflow angles and the predominant
effect turns out to be the transmission of angular momentum, i.e. a
torque giving an integral-sign shaped warp. The torque produced by a
flow of velocity ˜ 100 km/s and baryon density ˜
10-25 kg/m3, which is within the possible values
for the intergalactic medium, is enough to generate the observed warps
and this mechanism offers quite a plausible explanation. The inferred
rate of infall of matter, ˜ 1 M&sun;/yr, to the
Galactic disc that this theory predicts agrees with the quantitative
predictions of chemical evolution resolving key issues, notably the
G-dwarf problem.
Sánchez-Salcedo (2006) suggests that this mechanism is not
plausible because it would produce a dependence of the scaleheight of
the disc with the Galactocentric azimuth in the outer disc, but rather
than being an objection this is another argument in favour of the
mechanism because this dependence is actually observed in our Galaxy.