Galactic disks as reaction-diffusion systems

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A model of a galactic disk is presented which extends the homogeneous one zone models by incorporating propagation of material and energy in the disk. For reasonable values of the parameters the homogeneous steady state is unstable to the development of inhomogeneities, leading to the development of spatial and temporal structure. At the linearized level a prediction for the length and time scales of the patterns is found. These instabilities arise for the same reason that pattern formation is seen in non-equilibrium chemical and biological systems, which is that the positive and negative feedback effects which govern the rates of the critical processes act over different distance scales, as in Turing's reaction-diffusion models. This shows that patterns would form in the disk even in the absence of gravitational effects, density waves, rotation, shear and external perturbations. These nonlinear effects may thus explain the spiral structure seen in the star forming regions of isolated flocculent galaxies.