Little time for oscillation: Fast disruption of the Radcliffe Wave by Galactic Motions

Li, Guang-Xing, Zhou, Jixuan and Chen, Bingqiu 2024. Little time for oscillation: Fast disruption of the Radcliffe Wave by Galactic Motions. Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society 8 (12) , 316. 10.3847/2515-5172/ada0bf

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Abstract

The Radcliffe wave is a 2.7 kpc long, 100 pc wide-like structure in the Galactic disk with a wave-like velocity structure. A referent Nature paper treated the Wave as a solid body in the disk plane, modeled its oscillation along the vertical direction, and derived the local Galactic mass distribution from the oscillation pattern. In reality, Galactic shear can stretch gas through differential rotation, whereas gas clouds experience epicyclic motions. We simulate the 3D evolution of the local interstellar gas and find shear and encyclic motion stretches the Radcliffe wave to almost twice its current length at the timescale of 45 Myr, within which only half a cycle of the proposed vertical oscillation occurs. The simulation also reveals the formation of new filaments and filament-filament mergers. Treating the Radcliffe wave as a solid body in the Galactic disk and an oscillating structure in the vertical direction is thus an oversimplification. Our data-driven simulation reveals the 3D evolution of the local interstellar gas with several processes at play, strengthening the role of the Solar Neighborhood as a unique test ground for theories of interstellar gas evolution.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Type: cc-by
Publisher:	American Astronomical Society
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	3 January 2025
Date of Acceptance:	3 December 2024
Last Modified:	03 Jan 2025 17:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/174984

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