English

Kinematical & Chemical Characteristics of the Thin and Thick Disks

Astrophysics 2015-05-13 v1

Abstract

I discuss how the chemical abundance distributions, kinematics and age distributions of stars in the thin and thick disks of the Galaxy can be used to decipher the merger history of the Milky Way, a typical large galaxy. The observational evidence points to a rather quiescent past merging history, unusual in the context of the `consensus' cold-dark-matter cosmology favoured from observations of structure on scales larger than individual galaxies.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0809.4516,
  title  = {Kinematical & Chemical Characteristics of the Thin and Thick Disks},
  author = {Rosemary F. G. Wyse},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0809.4516},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

12 pages, 4 figures; review at IAU Symposium 254, `The Galaxy Disk in Cosmological Context', Copenhagen, June 2008, eds J. Andersen, J. Bland-Hawthorn & B. Nordstrom