Related papers: The Galactic Bulge: A Review
In the past decade high resolution measurements in the infrared employing adaptive optics imaging on 10m telescopes have allowed determining the three dimensional orbits stars within ten light hours of the compact radio source at the center…
The kinematics of the Milky Way bulge is known to be complex, reflecting the presence of multiple stellar components with distinct chemical and spatial properties. In particular, the bulge hosts a bar structure exhibiting cylindrical…
The hierarchical theory of galaxy formation rests on the idea that smaller galactic structures merge to form the galaxies that we see today. The past decade has provided remarkable observational support for this scenario, driven in part by…
An algorithm is developed and tested for the problem posed by photometric observations of the bulge of the Milky Way. The latter subtends a non-trivial solid angle on the sky, and we show that this permits inversion of the projected…
The Galactic bulge is a massive, old component of the Milky Way. It is known to host a bar, and it has recently been demonstrated to have a pronounced boxy/peanut structure in its outer region. Several independent studies suggest the…
Our Galaxy - the Milky Way - has certain features of the structure and evolution. The morphological, photometric, kinematic, and chemodynamical properties are usually considered in the search for the Milky Way galaxies-analogues (MWAs). The…
The evolution of the Milky Way bulge and its relationship with the other Galactic populations is still poorly understood. The bulge has been suggested to be either a merger-driven classical bulge or the product of a dynamical instability of…
We present a detailed analysis of the Galaxy structure using an unWISE wide-field image at $3.4\mu$m. We perform a 3D photometric decomposition of the Milky Way taking into account i) the projection of the Galaxy on the celestial sphere and…
The Milky Way is surrounded by large amounts of gaseous matter that are slowly being accreted over cosmic timescales to support star formation in the disk. The corresponding gas-accretion rate represents a key parameter for the past,…
Estimating ages for stars is difficult at best, but Galactic problems have their own requirements that go beyond those for other areas of astrophysics. As in other areas, asteroseismology is helping, and in this review I discuss some of the…
(ABRIDGED) Globular clusters trace the formation and evolution of the Milky Way and surrounding galaxies, and outline their chemical enrichment history. To accomplish these tasks it is important to have large samples of clusters with…
We analyze the structure and chemo-dynamical properties of the Galactic bulge using ab-type RR Lyrae stars (RRabs) from OGLE-IV and giant stars from APOGEE and Gaia. Orbital integration of 1,879 RRab variables reveals three populations:…
Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are the primary reservoirs of cold, star-forming molecular gas in the Milky Way and similar galaxies, and thus any understanding of star formation must encompass a model for GMC formation, evolution, and…
At a distance of 8 kpc only, the center of the Galaxy provides a unique testbed for studies about the physics of the interstellar medium and star formation in the nuclei of galaxies. Since it shares many properties of other, more…
Properties of normal galactic star formation, including the density dependence, threshold density, turbulent scaling relations, and clustering properties, are applied to the formation of galactic bulges. One important difference is that the…
The Milky Way is often considered to be the best example of a spiral for which the dark matter not only dominates the outer kinematics, but also plays a major dynamical role in the inner galaxy: the Galactic disk is therefore said to be…
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy, with physical properties inferred from various tracers informed by the extrapolation of structures seen in other galaxies. However, the distances of these tracers are measured indirectly and are…
A suite of vast stellar surveys mapping the Milky Way, culminating in the Gaia mission, is revolutionizing the empirical information about the distribution and properties of stars in the Galactic stellar disk. We review and lay out what…
It has been known for some time that the Milky Way is a barred disk galaxy. More recently several studies inferred from starcount observations that the Galaxy must contain a separate, new, flat long bar component, twisted relative to the…
A brief overview of recent advances in the study of star formation in the Galactic Center (GC) environment is presented. Particular attention is paid to new insights concerning the suppression of star formation in GC molecular clouds.…