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Paper: 3D MHD Modeling of the Gaseous Structure of the Galaxy
Volume: 275, Disks of Galaxies: Kinematics, Dynamics and Perturbations
Page: 363
Authors: Gomez, G. C.; Cox, D. P.
Abstract: We show the preliminary results of our 3D MHD simulation of the ISM flow in the Milky Way near a spiral arm. We find a strong shock above z = 400 pc, which slants outwards from the arm in the midplane, with downward velocities of up to 20 km/s. At low z a hydraulic jump behavior is observed, as suggested by Martos & Cox (1998). Little interarm structure is found in a two-armed case, while broken arms and bridges are frequent in four-armed cases. Greater structure is expected when we include the cooling of denser regions. As an example of the significance of such dynamics, we compared the obtained velocity field with that of a purely circular rotation, and found that an observer inside the galaxy should see radial velocity differences of up to 20 km/s, which can lead to errors in distance estimations of several kpc, even for nearby gas.
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