Abstract
Observational evidence on the widespread occurrence of warping of the outer part of the galactic plane in many galaxies is presented and various hypotheses for its explanation are reviewed. None is found to be able to account for all the cases reported. Other phenomena considered are: (1) deviations from the galactic plane in the innermost nuclear region; (2) differences in orientation of the nucleus and disk in spiral galaxies; (3) changing ellipticity with distance from the center.
After discussing the observations available, a theory has been developed which explains the phenomena mentioned as natural consequences of the non-steady nature of galactic systems due to time-dependent metric. This manifests itself in the appearance of tangential acceleration which leads necessarily to variability of the orbital plane and orbital eccentricity in dependence on the radius vector of the orbits.
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Abramenko, B. The warping of the galactic plane and changes of ellipticity. Astrophys Space Sci 54, 323–342 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00639438
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00639438