Related papers: The Role of Dwarf Galaxies in Building Large Stell…
How do late type spiral galaxies form within the context of a CDM cosmology? We contrast N-body, smoothed particle hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation which employ two different supernova feedback mechanisms. Observed mass and…
We use numerical simulations to examine the substructure within galactic and cluster mass halos that form within a hierarchical universe. Clusters are easily reproduced with a steep mass spectrum of thousands of substructure clumps that…
We introduce and apply a new approach to probe the response of galactic stellar haloes to the interplay between cosmological merger histories and galaxy formation physics. We perform dark matter-only, zoomed simulations of two Milky…
Galaxy surveys have shown that luminous galaxies are mainly distributed in large filaments and galaxy clusters. The remaining large volumes are virtually devoid of luminous galaxies. This is in concordance with the formation of the…
In this series of lectures I discuss the basic principles and the modelling of the chemical evolution of galaxies. In particular, I present models for the chemical evolution of the Milky Way galaxy and compare them with the available…
The dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) in the Local Group are excellent systems on which we can test theories of galaxy formation and evolution. Color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) containing many thousands of stars from the asymptotic giant…
According to the now strongly supported concordance $\Lambda$CDM model, galaxies may be grossly described as a luminous component embedded in a dark matter halo. The density profile of these mass dominating haloes may be determined by N -…
If the Galaxy formed hierarchically through the accretion of smaller satellite galaxies we might hope to find signatures of this in the halo's phase-space distribution. I review theoretical ideas about what form these signatures should…
Galaxies are predicted to assemble their stellar haloes through the accretion of stellar material from interactions with their cosmic environment. Observations that trace stellar halo buildup probe the processes that drive galaxy size and…
Upcoming next generation galactic surveys, such as GAIA and HERMES, will deliver unprecedented detail about the structure and make-up of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, and promise to radically improve our understanding of it. However, to…
The smallest dwarf galaxies are the most straight forward objects in which to study star formation processes on a galactic scale. They are typically single cell star forming entities, and as small potentials in orbit around a much larger…
Recent surveys of star forming regions have shown that most stars, and probably all massive stars, are born in dense stellar clusters. The mechanism by which a molecular cloud fragments to form several hundred to thousands of individual…
We combine the six high-resolution Aquarius dark matter simulations with a semi-analytic galaxy formation model to investigate the properties of the satellites of Milky Way-like galaxies. We find good correspondence with the observed…
We compare the metallicity distribution of Galactic Halo stars with 3D realizations of hierarchical galaxy formation. Outflows from dwarf galaxies enrich the intergalactic medium inhomogeneously, at a rate depending on the local galaxy…
If the favored hierarchical cosmological model is correct, then the Milky Way system should have accreted and subsequently tidally destroyed ~100 low-mass galaxies in the past ~12 Gyr. We model this process using a hybrid semi-analytic plus…
Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is a benchmark for understanding disk galaxies. It is the only galaxy whose formation history can be studied using the full distribution of stars from white dwarfs to supergiants. The oldest components provide us…
A simple, 1-equation, galaxy formation model is applied to both the halo merger tree derived from a high-resolution dissipationless cosmological simulation and to 1/4 million Monte-Carlo halo merger trees. The galaxy formation model…
We investigate the orbital motions of dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) in the halo of the Milky Way (MW) to understand their possible effects on the diversity of the star formation histories seen in these MW satellites. In this work, we…
We construct three extreme different scenarios of the star formation histories applicable to a sample of dwarf galaxies, based either on their present metallicity or their luminosity. The three possible scenarios imply different mechanical…
Stellar halos observed around normal galaxies are extended and faint stellar structures formed by debris of tidally disrupted dwarf galaxies accreted over time by the host galaxy. Around dwarf galaxies, these stellar halos may not exist if…