Transient growth and coupling of vortex and wave modes in self-gravitating gaseous discs

Flow nonnormality induced linear transient phenomena in thin self-gravitating astrophysical discs are studied in the shearing sheet approximation. The considered system includes two modes of perturbations: vortex and (spiral density) wave. It is shown that self-gravity considerably alters the vortex mode dynamics – its transient (swing) growth may be several orders of magnitude stronger than in the non-self-gravitating case and 2-3 times larger than the transient growth of the wave mode. Based on this finding, we comment on the role of vortex mode perturbations in a gravitoturbulent state. Also described is the linear coupling of the perturbation modes, caused by the differential character of disc rotation. The coupling is asymmetric – vortex mode perturbations are able to excite wave mode ones, but not vice versa. This asymmetric coupling lends additional significance to the vortex mode as a participant in spiral density waves and shocks manifestations in astrophysical discs.