Related papers: Origin of chemical and dynamical properties of the…
We used an N-body smoothed particle hydrodynamics algorithm, with a detailed treatment of star formation, supernovae feedback, and chemical enrichment, to perform eight simulations of mergers between gas-rich disc galaxies. We vary the mass…
The space velocities and Galactic orbital elements of stars calculated from the currently available high-accuracy observations in our summary catalog of spectroscopic magnesium abundances in dwarfs and subgiants in the solar neighborhood…
The thick disk rotation--metallicity correlation, \partial V_\phi/\partial[Fe/H] =40\div 50 km s^{-1}dex^{-1} represents an important signature of the formation processes of the galactic disk. We use nondissipative numerical simulations to…
Mergers between gas--rich disks and less--massive dwarf galaxies are studied using numerical simulation. As the orbit of a satellite decays through dynamical friction, the primary disk develops large-amplitude spirals in response to its…
In this letter we examine the evolution of the radial metallicity gradient induced by secular processes, in the disk of an $N$-body Milky Way-like galaxy. We assign a [Fe/H] value to each particle of the simulation according to an initial,…
Standard chemical evolution models based on long-term infall are affected by a number of problems, evidenced by the analysis of the most recent data. Among these: (1) models rely on the local metallicity distribution, assuming its shape is…
Understanding the formation and evolution of the Milky Way's thin and thick discs is crucial to galaxy formation studies. We derive age and metallicity distributions of the kinematic thick and thin discs using the CMDft.Gaia pipeline and…
Using the DR12 public release of APOGEE data, we show that thin and thick disk separate very well in the space defined by [$\alpha$/Fe], [Fe/H] and [C/N]. Thick disk giants have both higher [C/N] and higher [$\alpha$/Fe] than do thin disk…
The analysis of the kinematics of solar neighbourhood stars shows that the low and high metallicity tails of the thin disc are populated by objects which orbital properties suggest an origin in the outer and inner galactic disc,…
For several decades now, open clusters have been used to study the structure and chemical evolution of the disk of our Galaxy. Due to the fact that their ages and metallicities can be determined with relatively good precision, and since…
The disk galaxy simulated using our chemo-dynamical galaxy formation code, GCD+, is shown to have a thick disk component. This is evidenced by the velocity dispersion versus age relation for solar neighbourhood stars, which clearly shows an…
I briefly review the growing evidence that thick stellar disks surround most edge-on disk galaxies. Recent studies show that these extragalactic thick disks have old ages, low metallicities, long scale lengths, and moderately flattened…
(Abridged) We analyze chemical and kinematical properties of about 850 FGK solar neighborhood long-lived dwarfs observed with the HARPS high-resolution spectrograph. The stars in the sample have logg > 4 dex, 5000 < Teff < 6500 K, and -1.39…
Using the deepest and the most complete set of observations of distant galaxies, we investigate how extended disks could have formed. Observations include spatially-resolved kinematics, detailed morphologies and photometry from UV to…
The formation of our Milky Way can be parsed qualitatively into different phases that resulted in its structurally different stellar populations: the halo and the disk components. Revealing a quantitative overall picture of the Galactic…
The Milky Way serves as a template for understanding the formation and evolution of late-type massive disk galaxies since we can obtain detailed chemical and kinematic information for large samples of individual stars. However, the early…
We report the first robust measurement of the Milky Way star formation history using the imprint left on chemical abundances of long-lived stars. The formation of the Galactic thick disc occurs during an intense star formation phase between…
We compare the star-formation history and dynamics of the Milky Way (MW) with the properties of distant disk galaxies. During the first ~4 Gyr of its evolution, the MW formed stars with a high star-formation intensity (SFI), Sigma_SFR~0.6…
We present simulations of the formation of thick disks via the accretion of two-component satellites onto a pre-existing thin disk. Our goal is to establish the detailed characteristics of the thick disks obtained in this way, as well as…
I discuss how the chemical abundance distributions, kinematics and age distributions of stars in the thin and thick disks of the Galaxy can be used to decipher the merger history of the Milky Way, a typical large galaxy. The observational…