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1. Mapping the Galactic disc with the LAMOST and Gaia red clump sample: II. 3D asymmetrical kinematics of mono-age populations in the disc between 6–14  kpc

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz3113  

   Wang, H-F ; López-Corredoira, M ; Huang, Y ; Carlin, J L ; Chen, B-Q ; Wang, C ; Chang, J ; Zhang, H-W ; Xiang, M-S ; Yuan, H-B ; et al ( January 2020 , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   null (Ed.)

   ABSTRACT We perform analysis of the 3D kinematics of Milky Way disc stars in mono-age populations. We focus on stars between Galactocentric distances of R = 6 and 14  kpc, selected from the combined LAMOST Data Release 4 (DR4) red clump giant stars and Gaia DR2 proper motion catalogue. We confirm the 3D asymmetrical motions of recent works and provide time tagging of the Galactic outer disc asymmetrical motions near the anticentre direction out to Galactocentric distances of 14 kpc. Radial Galactocentric motions reach values up to 10 km s−1, depending on the age of the population, and present a north–south asymmetry in the region corresponding to density and velocity substructures that were sensitive to the perturbations in the early 6  Gyr. After that time, the disc stars in this asymmetrical structure have become kinematically hotter, and are thus not sensitive to perturbations, and we find the structure is a relatively younger population. With quantitative analysis, we find stars both above and below the plane at R ≳ 9 kpc that exhibit bending mode motions of which the sensitive duration is around 8  Gyr. We speculate that the in-plane asymmetries might not be mainly caused by a fast rotating bar, intrinsically elliptical outer disc, secular expansion of the disc, or streams. Spiral arm dynamics, out-of-equilibrium models, minor mergers or others are important contributors. Vertical motions might be dominated by bending and breathing modes induced by complicated inner or external perturbers. It is likely that many of these mechanisms are coupled together. 

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2. Are inner disc misalignments common? ALMA reveals an isotropic outer disc inclination distribution for young dipper stars

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz3361  

   Ansdell, M ; Gaidos, E ; Hedges, C ; Tazzari, M ; Kraus, A L ; Wyatt, M C ; Kennedy, G M ; Williams, J P ; Mann, A W ; Angelo, I ; et al ( February 2020 , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   ABSTRACT Dippers are a common class of young variable star exhibiting day-long dimmings with depths of up to several tens of per cent. A standard explanation is that dippers host nearly edge-on (id ≈ 70°) protoplanetary discs that allow close-in (<1 au) dust lifted slightly out of the mid-plane to partially occult the star. The identification of a face-on dipper disc and growing evidence of inner disc misalignments brings this scenario into question. Thus, we uniformly (re)derive the inclinations of 24 dipper discs resolved with (sub-)mm interferometry from ALMA. We find that dipper disc inclinations are consistent with an isotropic distribution over id ≈ 0−75°, above which the occurrence rate declines (likely an observational selection effect due to optically thick disc mid-planes blocking their host stars). These findings indicate that the dipper phenomenon is unrelated to the outer (>10 au) disc resolved by ALMA and that inner disc misalignments may be common during the protoplanetary phase. More than one mechanism may contribute to the dipper phenomenon, including accretion-driven warps and ‘broken’ discs caused by inclined (sub-)stellar or planetary companions. 

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3. Born this way: thin disc, thick disc, and isotropic spheroid formation in FIRE-2 Milky Way–mass galaxy simulations

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1806  

   Yu, Sijie ; Bullock, James S. ; Gurvich, Alexander B. ; Hafen, Zachary ; Stern, Jonathan ; Boylan-Kolchin, Michael ; Faucher-Giguère, Claude-André ; Wetzel, Andrew ; Hopkins, Philip F. ; Moreno, Jorge ( June 2023 , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   We investigate the formation of Milky Way–mass galaxies using FIRE-2 ΛCDM cosmological zoom-in simulations by studying the orbital evolution of stars formed in the main progenitor of the galaxy, from birth to the present day. We classify in situ stars as isotropic spheroid, thick-disc, and thin-disc according to their orbital circularities and show that these components are assembled in a time-ordered sequence from early to late times, respectively. All simulated galaxies experience an early phase of bursty star formation that transitions to a late-time steady phase. This transition coincides with the time that the inner CGM virializes. During the early bursty phase, galaxies have irregular morphologies and new stars are born on radial orbits; these stars evolve into an isotropic spheroidal population today. The bulk of thick-disc stars form at intermediate times, during a clumpy-disc ‘spin-up’ phase, slightly later than the peak of spheroid formation. At late times, once the CGM virializes and star formation ‘cools down,’ stars are born on circular orbits within a narrow plane. Those stars mostly inhabit thin discs today. Broadly speaking, stars with disc-like or spheroid-like orbits today were born that way. Mergers on to discs and secular processes do affect kinematics in our simulations, but play only secondary roles in populating thick-disc and in situ spheroid populations at z = 0. The age distributions of spheroid, thick disc, and thin disc populations scale self-similarly with the steady-phase transition time, which suggests that morphological age dating can be linked to the CGM virialization time in galaxies.

    

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4. On the importance of disc chemistry in the formation of protoplanetary disc rings

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2626  

   Nolan, C. A. ; Zhao, B. ; Caselli, P. ; Li, Z. Y. ( September 2023 , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   Radial substructures have now been observed in a wide range of protoplanetary discs (PPDs), from young to old systems; however, their formation is still an area of vigorous debate. Recent magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations have shown that rings and gaps can form naturally in PPDs when non-ideal MHD effects are included. However, these simulations employ ad hoc approximations to the magnitudes of the magnetic diffusivities in order to facilitate ring growth. We replace the parametrization of these terms with a simple chemical network and grain distribution model to calculate the non-ideal effects in a more self-consistent way. We use a range of grain distributions to simulate grain formation for different disc conditions. Including ambipolar diffusion, we find that large grain populations (>1 $\mu$m), and those including a population of very small polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) facilitate the growth of periodic, stable rings, while intermediate-sized grains suppress ring formation. Including Ohmic diffusion removes the positive influence of PAHs, with only large grain populations still producing periodic ring and gap structures. These results relate closely to the degree of coupling between the magnetic field and the neutral disc material, quantified by the non-dimensional Elsasser number Λ (the ratio of magnetic forces to Coriolis force). For both the ambipolar-only and ambipolar-ohmic cases, if the total Elsasser number is initially of the order of unity along the disc mid-plane, ring and gap structures may develop.

    

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5. The impact of cosmic rays on dynamical balance and disc–halo interaction in L ⋆ disc galaxies

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2236  

   Chan, T. K. ; Kereš, Dušan ; Gurvich, Alexander B. ; Hopkins, Philip F. ; Trapp, Cameron ; Ji, Suoqing ; Faucher-Giguère, Claude-André ( August 2022 , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   Cosmic rays (CRs) are an important component in the interstellar medium, but their effect on the dynamics of the disc–halo interface (<10 kpc from the disc) is still unclear. We study the influence of CRs on the gas above the disc with high-resolution FIRE-2 cosmological simulations of late-type L⋆ galaxies at redshift z ∼ 0. We compare runs with and without CR feedback (with constant anisotropic diffusion κ∥ ∼ 3 × 1029 cm2 s−1 and streaming). Our simulations capture the relevant disc–halo interactions, including outflows, inflows, and galactic fountains. Extra-planar gas in all of the runs satisfies dynamical balance, where total pressure balances the weight of the overlying gas. While the kinetic pressure from non-uniform motion (≳1 kpc scale) dominates in the mid-plane, thermal and bulk pressures (or CR pressure if included) take over at large heights. We find that with CR feedback, (1) the warm (∼104 K) gas is slowly accelerated by CRs; (2) the hot (>5 × 105 K) gas scale height is suppressed; (3) the warm-hot (2 × 104–5 × 105 K) medium becomes the most volume-filling phase in the disc–halo interface. We develop a novel conceptual model of the near-disc gas dynamics in low-redshift L⋆ galaxies: with CRs, the disc–halo interface is filled with CR-driven warm winds and hot superbubbles that are propagating into the circumgalactic medium with a small fraction falling back to the disc. Without CRs, most outflows from hot superbubbles are trapped by the existing hot halo and gravity, so typically they form galactic fountains.

    

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