Related papers: Pattern speeds in the Milky Way
The most important theory of the spiral arms of galaxies is the density wave theory based on the Lin-Shu dispersion relation. However, the density waves move with the group velocity towards the inner Lindblad resonance and tend to…
Density waves in galaxy disks have been proposed over the years, in a variety of specific models, to explain spiral arm structure and its relation to the mass distribution, notably in barred galaxies. An important parameter in dynamical…
Spiral density wave theory attempts to describe the spiral pattern in spiral galaxies in terms of a long-lived wave structure with a constant pattern speed in order to avoid the winding dilemma. The pattern is consequently a rigidly…
The Milky Way has a barred bulge. This article summarizes the current understanding of the main structural parameters and pattern speed of the bar, and compares predicted values for the microlensing optical depth with the bulge microlensing…
Here we statistically evaluate recent advances in determining the Sun-Galactic Center distance (Rsun) as well as recent measures of the orbital velocity around the Galactic Center (Vlsr), and the angular rotation parameters of various…
The Milky Way spiral arm dynamics is studied using the birth place of open clusters. We separately study the nearby spiral arms, and find evidence for multiple spiral sets. In particular, the Sagittarius-Carina arm appears to be a…
Our Galaxy is a barred spiral. Recent work based on the COBE NIR data implies a small bulge-bar and a disk with a short scale-length. The corotation radius of the bar is in the range 3-4.5 kpc. The stellar density distribution beyond the…
We describe the structure and composition of six major stellar streams in a population of 20 574 local stars in the New Hipparcos Reduction with known radial velocities. We find that, once fast moving stars are excluded, almost all stars…
The dark matter distribution of the Milky Way remains among the major unsolved problems about our home galaxy. The masses of other spiral galaxies can be determined from their rotation curves through long-slit spectroscopy. But for the…
A direct observation of the spiral structure of the Galaxy is hindered by our position in the middle of the Galactic plane. We propose a method based on the analysis of the birthplaces of high Galactic latitude runaway stars to map the…
A method which we have developed for determining corotation radii, has allowed us to map in detail the radial resonant structures of barred spiral galaxies. Here we have combined this information with new determinations of the bar strength…
Bars are common galactic structures in the local universe that play an important role in the secular evolution of galaxies, including the Milky Way. In particular, the velocity distribution of individual stars in our galaxy is useful to…
The distance to the Galactic center $R_0$ is a fundamental parameter for understanding the Milky Way, because all observations of our Galaxy are made from our heliocentric reference point. The uncertainty in $R_0$ limits our knowledge of…
Like the majority of spiral galaxies, the Milky Way contains a central non-axisymmetric bar component. Our position in the Galactic plane renders it rather hard to see, but also allows us to make measurements of the bar that are completely…
This article discusses the effects of the spiral-arm corotation on the stellar dynamics in the Solar Neighborhood (SN). All our results presented here rely on: 1) observational evidence that the Sun lies near the corotation circle, where…
Understanding radial migration is a crucial point to build relevant chemical and dynamical evolution models of the Milky Way disk. In this paper, we analyze a high-resolution N-body simulation of a Milky Way-type galaxy to study the role…
We have used Spitzer images of a sample of 68 barred spiral galaxies in the local universe to make systematic measurements of bar length and bar strength. We combine these with precise determinations of the corotation radii associated with…
We investigate models of the Milky Way disc taking into account simultaneously the bar and a two-armed quasi-static spiral pattern. Away from major resonance overlaps, the mean stellar radial motions in the plane are essentially a linear…
From the Sun, a look at the edge of each spiral arm in our Milky Way (seen tangentially, along the line of sight) can yield numerous insights. Using different arm tracers (dust, masers, synchrotron emission, CO gas, open star clusters), we…
In the present work we have developed a three-dimensional gravitational model of barred galaxies, in order to study orbital and escape dynamics of the stars inside their central barred region. Our gravitational model is composed of four…