Dynamical friction plays an important role in reducing angular momenta of objects in orbital motions. While astronomical objects usually follow curvilinear orbits, most previous studies focused on the linear-trajectory cases. Here, we present the gravitational wake due to, and dynamical friction on, a perturber moving on a circular orbit in a uniform gaseous medium using a semi-analytic method. The circular orbit causes the density wakes to bend along the orbit into asymmetric configurations, resulting in the drag forces in both opposite (azimuthal) and lateral (radial) directions to the perturber motion, although the latter does not contribute to the orbital decay much. For a subsonic perturber, the bending of a wake is only modest and the resulting drag force in the opposite direction is remarkably similar to the linear-trajectory counterpart. On the other hand, a supersonic perturber is able to overtake its own wake, possibly multiple times, creating a high-density trailing tail. Despite the dramatic changes in the wake morphologies, the azimuthal drag force is in surprisingly good agreement with the formulae of Ostriker for the linear-trajectory cases, provided Vpt=2Rp, where Vp and Rp are the velocity and orbital radius of the perturber, respectively.

Disk galaxies abound with intermediate-scale structures such as OB star complexes, giant clouds, and dust spurs in a close geometrical association with spiral arms. Various mechanisms have been proposed as candidates for their origin, but a comprehensive theory should encompass fundamental physical agents such as self-gravity, magnetic fields, galactic differential rotation, and spiral arms, all of which are known to exist in disk galaxies. Recent numerical simulations incorporating all these physical processes show that magneto-Jeans instability (MJI), in which magnetic tension resists the stabilizing Coriolis force of galaxy rotation, is much more powerful than swing-amplification or the Parker instability in forming self-gravitating intermediate-scale structures. The MJI occurring in shearing and expanding flows off spiral arms rapidly forms structures elongated along the direction perpendicular to the arms, remarkably similar to dust spurs seen in HST images of spiral galaxies. In highly nonlinear stages, these spurs fragment to form bound clumps, possibly evolving into bright arm and interarm H II regions, suggesting that all these intermediate-scale structures in spiral galaxies probably share a common dynamical origin.