An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A problem encountered by the → cold dark matter model of galaxy formation. The model predicts too small systems lacking → angular momentum, in contrast to real, observed galaxies. → cusp problem; → missing dwarfs.

→ angular; → momentum; → catastrophe

A great, often sudden calamity; a complete failure; a sudden violent change in the earth's surface. → cataclysm.

From Gk. katastrophe "an overturning, ruin," from katastrephein "to overturn, ruin" from kata "down" + strephein "to turn."

Negunzâr, from negun "overturned, inverted" + -zâr suffix denoting profusion, abundance, as in kârzâr "a field of battle; combat" šurezâr "unfertile, salty ground; nitrous earth," xoškzâr "arid land," and so forth.

In a compact, steady radio-source where the density of relativistic electrons and the density of synchrotron radiation due to these electrons are very large, the radio photons should be transformed into X-ray and gamma-ray photons through inelastic Compton scatterings onto the relativistic electrons. Thus the radio photons should rapidly disappear and only gamma-ray photons should be observed. This phenomenon does not take place if the radio source is in relativistic expansion.

→ Compton; → catastrophe.

The failure of numerical star formation calculations to produce rotationally supported → Keplerian disks because of the → magnetic braking effect, when → magnetic fields of strengths comparable to those observed in → molecular clouds are accounted for. The formation and early evolution of disks is a long-standing fundamental problem in → star formation models. Early work in the field had concentrated on the simpler problem of disk formation from the → collapse of a rotating dense core in the absence of a magnetic field. However, dense star-forming cores are observed to be significantly magnetized. There is increasing theoretical evidence that disk formation is greatly modified, perhaps even suppressed, by a dynamically important magnetic field. This has been found in analytic studies, axisymmetric numerical models and in 3D calculations using → ideal magnetohydrodynamics. By contrast, recent observations suggest the presence of massive, 50-100 AU disks and evidence for associated → outflows in the earliest (→ class 0) stages of star formation around both low and high mass stars. Two primary solutions have been proposed: → turbulence and → non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics. Calculations of the collapse of a massive 100 Msun core have shown that 100 AU scale disk formation in the presence of strong magnetic fields was indeed possible, with some argument over whether this is caused by turbulent reconnection or another mechanism. Studies, using simulations of collapsing 5 Msun cores, have found that turbulence diffuses the strong magnetic field out of the inner regions of the core, and that the non-zero → angular momentum of the turbulence causes a misalignment between the rotation axis and the magnetic field. Both of these effects reduce the magnetic braking, and allow a massive disk to form (Wurster et al. 2016, arxiv/1512.01597 and references therein).

→ magnetic; → braking; → catastrophe.

A → paradox encountered in the classical theory of → thermal radiation (→ Rayleigh-Jeans law), whereby a → blackbody should radiate an infinite amount of energy at infinitely short wavelengths, in contradiction with what is observed. The problem was solved by Max Planck in 1900, who suggested that, rather than being continuous, the energy comes in discrete parcels called → quanta. The avoidance of the ultraviolet catastrophe was one of the first great achievements of → quantum mechanics.

This problem was first raised by Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919), whereas the term ultraviolet catastrophe was first used by Paul Ehrenfest (1880-1933); → ultraviolet; → catastrophe.