Related papers: The Stellar Population of the Thin Disk
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…
The goal of this investigation is to reconstruct the cosmic star formation rate density history from local observations and in doing so to gain insight into how galaxies might have formed and evolved. A new chemical evolution model is…
A period of quenching between the formation of the thick and thin disks of the Milky Way has been recently proposed to explain the observed age-[{\alpha}/Fe] distribution of stars in the solar neighbourhood. However, robust constraints on…
I discuss various proposed formation scenarios for the metal-poor components of the Milky Way Galaxy, emphasising the stellar halo and the thick disk. Interactions and accretion played a significant role in Galactic evolution, in particular…
Observations of the stellar content of the Milky Way's bulge helps to understand the stellar content and evolution of distant galaxies. In this brief overview I will first highlight some recent work directed towards measuring the history of…
The prevailing model of galaxy formation proposes that galaxies like the Milky Way are built through a series of mergers with smaller galaxies over time. However, the exact details of the Milky Way's assembly history remain uncertain. In…
Low-mass disk galaxies with well-organized structures are relatively common in low density regions of the nearby Universe. They display a wide range in levels of star formation activity, extending from sluggishly evolving `superthin' disk…
Thick disks are faint and extended stellar components found around several disk galaxies including our Milky Way. The Milky Way thick disk, the only one studied in detail, contains mostly old disk stars (~10 Gyr), so that thick disks are…
Knowledge of ages for stars formed over a galaxy's lifetime is fundamental to understand its formation and evolution. However, stellar ages are difficult to obtain since they cannot be measured from observations, being comparison with…
Recent observations have shown that star-forming galaxies like our own Milky Way evolve kinematically into ordered thin disks over the last ~8 billion years since z=1.2, undergoing a process of "disk settling." For the first time, we study…
Global star formation is the key to understanding galaxy disk formation. This in turn depends on gravitational instability of disks and continuing gas accretion as well as minor merging. A key component is feedback from supernovae. Primary…
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…
The Milky Way harbours two disks that appear distinct concerning scale-heights, kinematics, and elemental abundance patterns. Recent years have seen a surge of studies of the elemental abundance trends in the disks using high resolution…
We analyze the present-day structure and assembly history of a high resolution hydrodynamic simulation of the formation of a Milky Way (MW)-like disk galaxy, from the "Eris" simulation suite, dissecting it into cohorts of stars formed at…
In the Milky Way, the thick disk can be defined using individual stellar abundances, kinematics, or age; or geometrically, as stars high above the mid-plane. In nearby galaxies, where only a geometric definition can be used, thick disks…
Despite having entered the era of "precision cosmology," the formation of galaxies within the favored CDM cosmological paradigm remains problematic. By relating our N-body/smooth particle hydro-dynamical simulation to an extensive range of…
The ongoing large spectroscopic surveys of the Milky Way such as SEGUE and RAVE have enabled us to take a fresh look at the structure of the Galactic thin and thick disks, and how their structure fits within the framework of structure…
I set the stage for discussion of the stellar populations in interacting galaxies by looking back over the slow development of our understanding of these systems. From early anecdotal collections, to systematic cataloging, and finally to…
The present-day state of the Milky Way disk can tell us much about the history of our Galaxy and provide insights into its formation. We have constructed a high-precision catalogue of disk stars using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey…
We trace the evolution of eight edge-on star-forming disk galaxies by analyzing stellar population properties of their thin and thick disks. These galaxies have relatively low stellar masses (4~$\times$~10$^9$ to…