Related papers: Outer Spiral Disks as Clues to Galaxy Formation an…
We present decompositions of the rotation curves of distant spiral galaxies into contributions due to their bulges, disks, and putative dark haloes. In order to set constraints on the ambiguities of the decompositions we interpret the…
A galactic disk in a spiral galaxy is generally believed to be embedded in an extended dark matter halo, which dominates its dynamics in the outer parts. However, the shape of the halo is not clearly understood. Here we show that the dark…
The extreme outer Galaxy (EOG) has a very different environment from that in the solar neighborhood, with low metallicity (less than -0.5 dex), much lower gas density, and small or no perturbation from spiral arms. The EOG is an excellent…
I briefly review early and recent progress concerning the dynamical properties of bulges. I also show results from a study on the kinematics of bulges and disks in edge-on galaxies, where the bulge rotation curve is obtained with little…
Many members of nearby young moving groups exhibit infrared excess attributed to circumstellar debris dust, formed via erosion of planetesimals. With their proximity and well-dated ages, these groups are excellent laboratories for studying…
A new idea is proposed for the origin of bulges in spiral galaxies. Numerical simulations for the protogalactic collapse suggest strongly that galactic bulges have been assembled from massive clumps formed in the galactic disks in their…
We review recent progress in high-resolution imaging of scattered light from disks around young stellar objects. Many new disks have been discovered or imaged in scattered light, and improved instrumentation and observing techniques have…
Debris disks are exoplanetary systems containing planets, minor bodies (such as asteroids and comets) and debris dust. Unseen planets are presumed to perturb the minor bodies into crossing orbits, generating small dust grains that are…
I review at the non-specialist level recent progress in the study of the large-scale structure of the Universe, covering the following areas: (1) Results from recently completed or ongoing redshift surveys of galaxies and X-ray clusters;…
As planets form and grow within gaseous protoplanetary disks, the mutual gravitational interaction between the disk and planet leads to the exchange of angular momentum, and migration of the planet. We review current understanding of…
We investigate numerically the orbital evolution of massive extrasolar planets within central cavities of their parent protoplanetary discs. Assuming that they arrive at the inner edge of the disc due to type II migration, we show that they…
In the first part of this article, we review the observational evidence for spirals in the accretion discs of cataclysmic variables. It is shown that with the increasing amount of data available, spirals appear to be an omnipresent feature…
As the number of detected extrasolar planets increases, exoplanet databases become a valuable resource, confirming some details about planetary formation, but also challenging our theories with new unexpected properties.
The recent progress in instrumentation and telescope development has brought us different ways to observe protoplanetary disks, including interferometers, space missions, adaptive optics, polarimetry, and time- and spectrally-resolved data.…
We investigate the impact of recent observational advances in research on the gaseous content of the universe on our knowledge of star formation histories of disk galaxies. Several contemporary surveys indicate that large quantities of gas…
This paper reviews some recent work on the properties of the outer halos of galaxies. I particularly focus on recent and upcoming advances made with the study of globular clusters. Globular clusters can be observed out to ~100 kpc from the…
Galaxy interactions expel a significant amount of stars and gas into the surrounding environment. I review the formation and evolution of the tidal debris spawned during these collisions, and describe how this evolution depends on the large…
During the past five years, the Spitzer Space Telescope and improved ground-based facilities have enabled a huge increase in the number of circumstellar disks, around young stars of Solar mass or smaller, in which the composition of the…
Shadows and spirals seem to be common features of transition discs. Among the spiral-triggering mechanisms proposed, only one establishes a causal link between shadows and spirals so far. In fact, provided the presence of shadows in the…
Planetary systems can evolve dynamically even after the planets themselves have fully formed, and there is circumstantial evidence that most planetary systems become unstable after the disappearance of the gaseous protoplanetary disk.…