Related papers: The Role of Dwarf Galaxies in Building Large Stell…
Nearby galaxies are the end result of their cosmological evolution, which is predicted to be influenced by the growth of their host dark matter halos. This co-evolution potentially leaves signatures in present-day observed galaxy…
If the favored hierarchical cosmological model is correct, then the Milky Way system should have accreted ~100-200 luminous satellite galaxies in the past \~12 Gyr. We model this process using a hybrid semi-analytic plus N-body approach…
Our Galaxy is thought to have undergone an active evolutionary history dominated by star formation, the accretion of cold gas, and, in particular, mergers up to 10 gigayear ago. The stellar halo reveals rich fossil evidence of these…
Dwarf galaxies that come too close to larger galaxies suffer tidal disruption; the differential gravitational force between one side of the galaxy and the other serves to rip the stars from the dwarf galaxy so that they instead orbit the…
If we are to develop a comprehensive and predictive theory of galaxy formation and evolution, it is essential that we obtain an accurate assessment of how and when galaxies assemble their stellar populations, and how this assembly varies…
Recent observations show that spiral galaxies are surrounded by extended gaseous halos as predicted by the hierarchical structure formation scenario. The origin and nature of extraplanar gas is often unclear since the halo is continuously…
Galaxy evolution is driven by processes occurring across a wide range of scales, from star formation within giant molecular clouds (parsec scales) to outflows and secular evolution across entire galaxies (kpc scales), and the interplay…
The full spatio-chemo-dynamical structure of galaxies of all types and environments at low redshift provides a critical accompaniment to observations of galaxy formation at high redshift. The next decade brings the observational opportunity…
Galactic bulges are central to understanding galaxy formation and evolution. Here we report on recent studies using micro-lensing events to obtain spectra of high resolution and moderately high signal-to-noise ratios of dwarf stars in the…
Stellar haloes form through the disruption of satellite galaxies over time, making them a promising observable for constraining galaxy merger histories. We use a dynamical decomposition technique to isolate the stellar haloes of Milky…
We simulate the dynamical and chemical evolution of a dwarf galaxy embedded in a dark matter halo, using a three-dimensional N-body/SPH simulation code combined with stellar population synthesis. The initial condition is adopted in accord…
In the first two years of operation JWST has delivered key new insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early Universe. By combining imaging with spectroscopy, we discovered and characterised the first generation of…
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…
This paper explores the mapping between the observable properties of a stellar halo in phase- and abundance-space and the parent galaxy's accretion history in terms of the characteristic epoch of accretion and mass and orbits of progenitor…
A standard paradigm is now available for the recent evolution (z < 10) of structure on galactic and larger scales. Most of the matter is assumed to be dark and dissipationless and to cluster hierarchically from gaussian initial conditions.…
Current cosmological models indicate that the Milky Way's stellar halo was assembled from many smaller systems. Based on the apparent absence of the most metal-poor stars in present-day dwarf galaxies, recent studies claimed that the true…
We explore the possibility that extended disks, such as that recently discovered in M31, are the result of a single dwarf (10^9--10^10 Msun) satellite merger. We carry out N-body simulations of dwarf NFW halos with embedded spheriodal…
We use galaxy and dark halo data from the public database for the Millennium Simulation to study the growth of galaxies in the De Lucia et al. (2006) model for galaxy formation. Previous work has shown this model to reproduce many aspects…
The Milky Way contains several distinct old stellar components that provide a fossil record of its formation. We can understand their spatial distribution and kinematics in a hierarchical formation scenario by associating the proto-galactic…
Hierarchical Cold Dark Matter (CDM) models predict that Milky Way (MW) sized halos contain hundreds of dense low-mass dark satellites, an order of magnitude more than the number of observed satellites in the Local Group (LG). If the CDM…