MS. ARUNIMA BANERJEE

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, the speaker will elucidate the crucial but hitherto ignored effect of the gas gravity on the stellar vertical structure. In the second part, she 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 her work.