Related papers: The Galactic Thick Disk: An Observational Perspect…
In the last years, stellar migration in galactic discs has been the subject of several investigations. However, its impact on the chemical evolution of the Milky Way still needs to be fully quantified. In this paper, we aim at imposing some…
We present a phenomenological model for understanding the origins and evolution of galaxy morphologies from a phenomenological perspective. The model includes an observationally motivated prescription for star formation in galaxy disks, as…
We review observational evidence bearing on the formation of a prototypical large spiral galaxy, the Milky Way. New ground- and space-based studies of globular star clusters and dwarf spheroidal galaxies provide a wealth of information to…
The evolution of C and O abundances in the Milky Way can impose strong constraints on stellar nucleosynthesis and help understanding the formation and evolution of our Galaxy. The aim is to review the measured C and O abundances in the disk…
If thick disks are ubiquitous and a natural product of disk galaxy formation and/or evolution processes, all undisturbed galaxies which have evolved during a significant fraction of a Hubble time should have a thick disk. The late-type…
We show that the Galactic thick disk reaches at least solar metallicities, and that it experienced strong chemical enrichment during a period of ~3 Gyr, ending around 8-9 Gyr ago. This finding puts further constraints on the relation and…
A short overview is presented of several topics concerning the evolution of the Milky Way (MW) in a cosmological context. In particular, the metallicity distribution of the MW halo is derived analytically and the halo metallicity and…
The existence of old dispersed stellar groups within the Milky Way disk is still controversial. Are they the debris of ancient star-forming aggregates, or short-lived artifacts of dynamical origin? With detailed elemental abundance…
[Abridged] Star and planet formation are the complex outcomes of gravitational collapse and angular momentum transport mediated by protostellar and protoplanetary disks. In this review we focus on the role of gravitational instability in…
Galactic disks lie at the heart of many of the most pressing astrophysical puzzles. There are sophisticated kinetic theories that describe some aspects of galaxy disk dynamics, but extracting quantitative predictions from those theories has…
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…
The physical processes driving the chemical evolution of galaxies in the last $\sim 11\, \rm{Gyr}$ cannot be understood without directly probing the dust-obscured phase of star-forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei. This phase, hidden…
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…
Protoplanetary disks are the birthplaces of planetary systems. The evolution of the star-disk system and the disk chemical composition determines the initial conditions for planet formation. Therefore a comprehensive understanding of the…
This paper focuses on carbon that is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe and is of high importance in the field of nucleosynthesis and galactic and stellar evolution. Even nowadays, the origin of carbon and the relative…
The formation timescale of the Milky Way thick disk is one of the central debates in Galactic archaeology. The age-metallicity relation (AMR), formation timescale, and chemical evolution gradients are frequently used to infer a rapid…
Long tails and streams of stars are the most noticeable upshots of galaxy collisions. Their origin as gravitational, tidal, disturbances has however been recognized only less than fifty years ago and more than ten years after their first…
Stars, and collections of stars, encode rich signatures of stellar physics and galaxy evolution. With properties influenced by both their environment and intrinsic nature, stars retain information about astrophysical phenomena that are not…
Cosmic magnetic fields are an integral component of the interstellar medium (ISM), having influence on scales ranging from star formation to galactic dynamics. While observations of external galaxies offer a `birds-eye-view' of magnetic…
As the likely birthplaces of planets and an essential conduit for the buildup of stellar masses, inner disks are of fundamental interest in star and planet formation. Studies of the gaseous component of inner disks are of interest because…