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| Paper: |
Spiral Arm Pitch Angle and its Significance for Theories of Galactic Structure |
| Volume: |
480, Structure and Dynamics of Disk Galaxies |
| Page: |
125 |
| Authors: |
Kennefick, D. |
| Abstract: |
I argue that the pitch angle of spiral arms in disk galaxies is one of a number of characteristics of galaxies (which we may refer to as “traits” of a galaxy) which correlate reasonably well with each other, most of them probably determined by the mass of the galaxy's central bulge. Although often dealt with qualitatively in the past, as in Hubble's galaxy classification scheme, quantifying pitch angle opens up the prospect of using it as a probe of the mass distribution of a galaxy and as a tool for testing various theories of the origins of spiral structure in disk galaxies. |
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