The Parker Instability in Disk Galaxies

摘要: We examine the evolution of the Parker instability in galactic disks using 3D numerical simulations. We consider a local Cartesian box section of a galactic disk, where gas, magnetic fields, and cosmic rays are all initially in a magnetohydrostatic equilibrium. This is done for different choices of initial cosmic-ray density and magnetic field. The growth rates and characteristic scales obtained from the models, as well as their dependences on the density of cosmic rays and magnetic fields, are in broad agreement with previous (linearized, ideal) analytical work. However, this nonideal instability develops a multimodal 3D structure, which cannot be quantitatively predicted from the earlier linearized studies. This 3D signature of the instability will be of importance in interpreting observations. As a preliminary step toward such interpretations, we calculate synthetic polarized intensity and Faraday rotation measure (RM) maps …