Disk Stability and Turbulence Generation: Effects of the Stellar Component

Galactic disks consist of both stars and gas. The stars gravitationally influence the gas either in disks at large or within spiral arms, leading to the formation of giant clouds and turbulence driving in the gas. In featureless disks as in flocculent galaxies, swing amplification operating in a combined star-gas disk is efficient to form bound condensations and feed a significant level of random gas motions. This occurs when the gaseous Toomre parameter is less than 1.4 for the stellar parameters similar to the solar neighbourhood conditions. In disks with spiral features, on the other hand, spiral-arm spurs and associated giant clouds develop as a consequence of magneto-Jeans instability in which magnetic tension counterbalances the stabilizing Coriolis force. Spiral shocks are inherently unstable when the vertical dimension is taken into account, exhibiting flapping motions of the shock front. This naturally converts the kinetic energy in galaxy rotation into random kinetic energy of the gas. The resulting turbulent motions are supersonic and persist despite strong shock dissipation. Thermal instability occurring in gas flows across spiral arms prompts phases transitions that produce a significant fraction of thermally-unstable, intermediate-temperature gas in the postshock expansion zones.