Abstract
The main goal of the paper is to demonstrate the presence of chaotic trajectories in the gaseous disk of a real spiral galaxy. As an example we have chosen NGC 3631. First, we show the stationarity of the 3-D velocity field restored from the observed line-of-sight velocity field of the gaseous disk. That allows to analyse behaviour of the trajectories of the fluid particles (gas clouds) in the disk, calculating the corresponding observed streamlines. We estimate the Lyapunov characteristic numbers using their independence of the metrics and show the existence of chaotic trajectories outside the vortices which are present in the velocity field, and in the vicinity of the saddle point. Related spectra of the stretching numbers for some trajectories are also calculated.
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Fridman, A., Khoruzhii, O. & Polyachenko, E. Observational Manifestation of Chaos in the Gaseous Disk of the Grand Design Spiral Galaxy NGC 3631. Space Science Reviews 102, 51–72 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021316916777
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021316916777