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The Ballistic Particle Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2017

Frank N. Bash*
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin

Extract

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Bash and Peters (1976) suggested that giant molecular clouds (GMC's) can be viewed as ballistic particles launched from the two-armed spiral-shock (TASS) wave with orbits influenced only by the overall galactic gravitational potential perturbed by the spiral gravitational potential in the arms. For GMC's in the Milky Way, the model predicts that the radial velocity observed from the Sun increases with age (time since launch). We showed that the terminal velocity of CO observed from l ≃ 30° to l ≃ 60° can be understood if all GMC's are born in the spiral pattern given by Yuan (1969) and live 30 × 106 yrs. Older GMC's were predicted to have radial velocities which exceed observed terminal velocities.

Type
II. Spiral Structure
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1983 

References

Bash, F. N. 1981, Astrophys. J., 250, 551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Bash, F. N. 1979, Astrophys. J., 233, 524.Google Scholar
Bash, F. N., Green, E., and Peters, W. L. 1977, Astrophys. J., 217, 464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bash, F. N., and Peters, W. L. 1976, Astrophys. J., 205, 786.Google Scholar
Hilton, J. L., and Bash, F. N. 1982, Astrophys. J., 255, 217.Google Scholar
Yuan, C. 1969, Astrophys. J., 158, 871.Google Scholar