Bending instability in galactic discs. Advocacy of the linear theory

We demonstrate that in N-body simulations of isolated disc galaxies there is numerical vertical heating which slowly increases the vertical velocity dispersion and the disc thickness. Even for models with over a million particles in a disc, this heating can be significant. Such an effect is just the same as in numerical experiments by Sellwood (2013). We also show that in a stellar disc, outside a boxy/peanut bulge, if it presents, the saturation level of the bending instability is rather close to the value predicted by the linear theory. We pay attention to the fact that the bending instability develops and decays very fast, so it couldn't play any role in secular vertical heating. However the bending instability defines the minimal value of the ratio between the vertical and radial velocity dispersions $\sigma_z / \sigma_R \approx 0.3$ (so indirectly the minimal thickness) which could have stellar discs in real galaxies. We demonstrate that observations confirm last statement.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Tidal Tails and Galaxy Evolution

We review recent results on the tidal structures of spiral galaxies. Topics included are general characteristics of tails; kinematics of tidal structures and dark haloes of host galaxies; frequency of tidal distortions at z~1.Comment: 5 pages, "Morphology and Dynamics of Stellar Systems: Star Clusters, Galactic Arms and Rings", Proc. JENAM-2000, in pres

Effect of the Environment on the Fundamental Plane of Elliptical Galaxies

We present an analysis of interacting E/S0 galaxies location on the Fundamental Plane. Using the NEMO package, we performed N-body simulations of close encounters and mergers between two spherical galaxies. We followed how structural and dynamical parameters (central density, half-mass radius and velocity dispersion)of galaxies are changed during the encounter. We analysed the dependence of these changes on initial mass concentration and presence of dark halo. The results of our simulations are used to discuss the Fundamental Plane for interacting early-type galaxies.Comment: Poster presented at JENAM-2000 (Joint European and National Astronomical meeting - S02. Morphology and dynamics of stellar systems: star clusters, galactic arms and rings

Gas flows in S-E binary systems of galaxies

Tidal interaction between the galaxies in binary systems leads to important consequences. Some peculiarities in galactic morphology as well as the transfer of matter from one galaxy to another may be due to this factor. In particular, gas flows in intergalactic space may be formed. Such flows enriching one component with gas from the other may play a substantial role in the evolution of mixed (S-E) pairs. One can mention several facts corroborating the possibility of the gas transfer from the spiral to the elliptical galaxy. High HI content (10(exp 7) to 10(exp 9) solar mass) is detected in nearly 40 E galaxies (Bottinelli and Gougenheim, 1979; Knapp et al., 1985). Such galaxies are often members of pairs or of multiple systems including an S galaxy, which may be the source of gas (Smirnov and Komberg, 1980). Moreover, the gas kinematics and its distribution also indicate an external origin for this gas (Knapp et al., 1985). In many cases there is an outer gaseous disk. The directions of the disk and of stellar rotation don't always coincide (van Gorkom et al., 1985; Varnas et al., 1987). The galaxy colors in S-E pairs are correlated (the Holmberg effect): bluer ellipticals have spiral components that are usually bluer (Demin et al., 1984). The fraction of E galaxies with emission lines (N sub em) in S-E pairs showing traces of tidal interaction is twice as large (N sub em approx. equals 0.24) as in pairs without interaction (N sub em approx. equals 0.12) (Sotnikova, 1988b). Since the presence of emission lines in a galaxy spectrum strongly depends on gas content, this fact also leads to the conclusion that ellipticals in interacting S-E pairs are enriched with gas. These facts may be considered as a serious indication of the existence of gas transfer. Hence, investigation of this process is of interest