Exchange of angular momentum between a stellar bar and a dark matter halo through orbital resonances. If the unperturbed halo distribution function depends only on energy and decreases with it, the resonant torque from a rotating perturbation is nonnegative for positive pattern angular velocity. Strict transfer requires nonzero resonant overlap. The reaction torque slows a rigid bar of constant positive moment of inertia; evolving bar structure and halo redistribution require updating the response.
Write , , and let the detuning from the rotating perturbation be
Substitute into the linear response in action-angle variables, then set :
At exact resonance the last quotient is interpreted by its continuous limit . Inserting this response in c gives
Pair with . Because , , and , the imaginary cosine terms cancel. The finite-time torque is
This is a leading, second-order response in the perturbation amplitude.
For the long-time limit, assume a continuum of occupied action variables, sufficiently smooth integrable weights, convergent harmonic sums, and regular resonance surfaces wherever a contributing surface intersects the distribution. Assume also that the perturbation is weak enough to neglect nonlinear trapping and secular changes in , and that the prescribed stellar bar pattern and its coefficients stay fixed. Then phase mixing removes nonresonant transients in the integrated response. The relevant long-time resonance kernel is the distributional convergence
It is not a pointwise limit: at the kernel equals . To justify its use under the integral over action variables, resolve the integral into detuning surfaces; the coarea formula gives
Smoothness and decay of this surface weight reduce the limit to the one-dimensional long-time resonance kernel. Equivalently, a causal convergence factor gives as .
Therefore the resonant torque from a rotating perturbation is
Only orbital resonances contribute to this steady integrated torque. The limit is a formal weak-perturbation limit, or an intermediate-time approximation after phase mixing but before substantial secular redistribution. It does not prove an unchanged halo can absorb angular momentum at this rate forever. A discrete set of orbital frequencies, singular resonance surfaces, or strong trapping can invalidate the stated steady limit.
Apply the chain rule to with :
On the resonance selected by the Dirac delta function, . Thus
Every weight is nonnegative, and . Strict positivity additionally requires a populated nonaxisymmetric resonance with nonzero coupling on a set of positive surface measure. The unconditional statement is nonnegativity, rather than positive definiteness. As a concrete counterexample to strict positivity of this formula, retain one nonzero conjugate harmonic pair with and choose its smooth coefficient supported in an open region . The perturbation is nonzero but has zero resonant coupling, so even when . The even simpler zero-perturbation case also gives zero. Whether a particular physical stellar bar has nonzero resonant overlap is additional information.
For a coupled stellar bar and halo, the halo gains positive angular momentum and exerts the opposite torque on the stellar bar. If the halo mass is and the rigid stellar bar has constant positive moment of inertia , then
This bar-halo angular-momentum transfer is a form of dynamical friction: a resonantly coupled stellar bar tends to slow down while the dark matter halo spins up. Actual long-term evolution changes both the stellar bar pattern and the halo distribution function, so the fixed-pattern response must then be updated. If the stellar bar changes its moment of inertia, the general relation is ; positive moment of inertia alone would not fix the sign of without that rigidity assumption.