Description |
The vertical structure of disk galaxies can be looked upon both as a treasure trove of rich physics as well as a tracer of the galactic dark matter halos. In the inner region of an ordinary spiral galaxy, the disk dynamics is regulated by the self-gravity of the stars and the gas, while in the outer galaxy the dark matter halo dominates. In the first part of the talk, I will elucidate the crucial but hitherto ignored effect of the gas gravity on the stellar vertical structure. In the second part, I will discuss how in the outer galaxy, the gas vertical structure acts as a sensitive probe of the galactic dark matter density profile including its shape, and present the results from our work.
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