Scaling Laws in Self-Gravitating Disks

Abstract

The interstellar medium (ISM) reveals strongly inhomogeneous structures at every scale. These structures do not seem completely random since they obey certain power laws. Larson's law (\citeyear{Larson81}) $σ\propto R^δ$ and the plausible assumption of virial equilibrium justify to consider fractals as a possible description of the ISM. In the following we investigate how self-gravitation, differential rotation and dissipation affect the matter distribution in galaxies. To this end we have performed 3D-simulations for self-gravitating local boxes embedded in a larger disk, extending the 2D-method of Toomre & Kalnajs (\citeyear{Toomre91}) and Wisdom & Tremaine (\citeyear{Wisdom88}). Our simulations lead to the conclusion that gravitation, shearing and dissipation can be dominantly responsible for maintaining an inhomogeneous and eventually a fractal distribution of the matter.

9 pages, 6 figures. To be published in the proceedings of The Evolution of Galaxies on Cosmological Timescale, eds. J.E. Beckman & T.J. Mahoney, Astrophysics and Space Science. Full resolution paper available at http://obswww.unige.ch/Preprints/cgi-bin/Preprintshtml.cgi?#DYNAMIC