Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Production Of Milky-Way Structure By The Magellanic-Clouds, Md Weinberg

Astronomy Department Faculty Publication Series

Previous attempts at disturbing the galactic disk by the Magellanic Clouds relied on direct tidal forcing. However, by allowing the halo to actively respond rather than remain a rigid contributor to the rotation curve, the Clouds may produce a wake in the halo which then distorts the disk. Recent work reported here suggests that the Magellanic Clouds use this mechanism to produce disk distortions sufficient to allow for both the radial location, position angle and sign of the HI warp and observed anomalies in stellar kinematics toward the galactic anticenter and LSR motion.