Related papers: The Galactic Bulge: A Review
We present the kinematic results from our ARGOS spectroscopic survey of the Galactic bulge of the Milky Way. Our aim is to understand the formation of the Galactic bulge. We examine the kinematics of about 17,400 stars in the bulge located…
A massive black hole resides in the center of most, perhaps all galaxies. The one in the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, provides a uniquely accessible laboratory for studying in detail the connections and interactions between a…
I present an overview of the science goals and achievements of ongoing spectroscopic surveys of individual stars in the nearby Universe. I include a brief discussion of the development of the field of Galactic Archaeology - using the fossil…
The mechanisms of the formation and evolution of the Milky Way are encoded in the orbits, chemistry and ages of its stars. With the 4MOST MIlky way Disk And BuLgE Low-Resolution Survey (4MIDABLE-LR) we aim to study kinematic and chemical…
We use a series of high-resolution N-body simulations of a `Milky-Way' halo, coupled to semi-analytic techniques, to study the formation of our own Galaxy and of its stellar halo. Our model Milky Way galaxy is a relatively young system…
In the center of the Milky Way, as well as in many other galaxies, a compact star cluster around a very massive black hole is observed. One of the possible explanations for the formation of such Nuclear Star Clusters is based on the…
The signatures of the formation and evolution of a galaxy are imprinted in its stars. Their velocities, ages, and chemical compositions present major constraints on models of galaxy formation, and on various processes such as the gas…
The Galactic Center of the Milky Way, thanks to its proximity, allows to perform astronomical observations that investigate physical phenomena at the edge of astrophysics and fundamental physics. As such, it offers a unique laboratory to…
The detailed dynamical structure of the bulge in the Milky Way is currently under debate. Although kinematics of the bulge stars can be well reproduced by a boxy-bulge, the possible existence of a small embedded classical bulge can not be…
Evidence from a variety of sources points towards the existence of a bar in the central few kpc of the Galaxy. The measurements roughly agree on the direction of the bar major axis, but other parameters (axis ratio, size, pattern speed) are…
We present a novel interpretation of the previously puzzling different behaviours of stellar populations of the Milky Way's bulge. We first show, by means of pure N-body simulations, that initially co-spatial stellar populations with…
The Galactic bulge of the Milky Way is made up of stars with a broad range of metallicity, -3.0 < [Fe/H] < 1 dex. The mean of the Metallicity Distribution Function (MDF) decreases as a function of height z from the plane and, more weakly,…
Nuclear Star Clusters are observed at the center of many galaxies. In particular in the center of the Milky Way the Nuclear Star Cluster coexists with a cen- tral supermassive black hole. The origin of these clusters is still unknown; a…
Until recently our knowledge of the Galactic Bulge stellar populations was based on the study of a few low extinction windows. Large photometric and spectroscopic surveys are now underway to map large areas of the bulge. They probe several…
Galactic bulges are complex systems. Once thought to be small-scale versions of elliptical galaxies, advances in astronomical instrumentation (spectroscopy in particular) has revealed a wealth of photometric and kinematic substructure in…
We discuss recent observations of stars located close to the symmetry plane of the Milky Way, and examine them in the context of theories of Galaxy formation and evolution. The kinematics, ages, and compositions of thin disk stars in the…
Hundreds of globular clusters and dwarf galaxies encircle the Milky Way. Many of these systems have undergone partial disruption due to tidal forces, littering the halo with stellar streams. These tidal tails are sensitive to the Galactic…
Nuclear star clusters are located at the dynamical centers of the majority of galaxies. They are usually the densest and most massive star cluster in their host galaxy. In this article, I will give a brief overview of our current knowledge…
The details of bulge formation via collapse, mergers, secular processes or their interplay remain unresolved. To start answering this question and quantify the importance of distinct mechanisms, we mapped a sample of three galactic bulges…
Bulges are a major galaxy component in the nearby universe, and are one of the primary features that differentiates and defines galaxies. The origin of bulges can be directly probed in part by examining distant galaxies to search for high…