Related papers: The Milky Way stellar populations in CFHTLS fields
The chemical abundances of Milky Way's satellites reflect their star formation histories (SFHs), yet, due to the difficulty of determining the ages of old stars, the SFHs of most satellites are poorly measured. Ongoing and upcoming surveys…
The spatial distribution of mono-abundance populations (MAPs, selected in [Fe/H] and [Mg/Fe]) reflect the chemical and structural evolution in a galaxy and impose strong constraints on galaxy formation models. In this paper, we use APOGEE…
We examine the \alpha-element abundance ratio, [\alpha/Fe], of 5620 stars, observed by the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration survey in the region 6 kpc < R < 16 kpc, 0.15 kpc < |Z| < 1.5 kpc, as a function of…
The {\alpha}-element abundances of the globular cluster (GC) and field star populations of galaxies encode information about the formation of each of these components. We use the E-MOSAICS cosmological simulations of ~L* galaxies and their…
The best way to trace back the history of star formation and mass assembly of the Milky Way disc is by combining chemical compositions, ages and phase-space information for a large number of disc stars. With the advent of large surveys of…
(Abridged) We perform an analysis of spectra and photometry for 22,770 stars included in the third data release (DR3) of the SDSS. We measure radial velocities and, based on a model-atmosphere analysis, derive estimates ofthe atmospheric…
Thick disks are a prevalent feature observed in numerous disk galaxies including our own Milky Way. Their significance has been reported to vary widely, ranging from a few to 100% of the disk mass, depending on the galaxy and the…
In this review, we present a brief description of observational efforts to understand the Galactic thick disk and its relation to the other Galactic components. This review primarily focused on elemental abundance patterns of the thick disk…
We have undertaken the study of the elemental abundances and kinematic properties of a metal-poor sample of candidate thick-disk stars selected from the RAVE spectroscopic survey of bright stars to differentiate among the present scenarios…
This paper describes the image stacks and catalogs of the CFHT Legacy Survey produced using using the MegaPipe data pipeline at the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre. The Legacy Survey is divided into to two parts: The Deep Survey consists of…
Thick disks are common in spiral and S0 galaxies and seem to be an inherent part of galaxy formation and evolution. Our own Milky Way is host to an old thick disk. The stars associated with this disk are enhanced in the alpha-elements as…
A recent observational study of haloes of nearby Milky Way-like galaxies shows that only half (four out of eight) of the current sample exhibits strong negative metallicity ([Fe/H]) gradients. This is at odds with predictions from…
We study the vertical stellar distribution of the Milky Way thin disk in detail with particular focus on the outer disk. We treat the galactic disk as a gravitationally coupled, three-component system consisting of stars, atomic hydrogen…
The Milky Way's stellar disk exhibits a bimodality in the [Fe/H] vs. [$\alpha$/Fe] plane, showing a distinct high-$\alpha$ and low-$\alpha$ sequence whose origin is still under debate. We examine the [Fe/H]-[$\alpha$/Fe] abundance plane in…
We present the results of our investigation of three samples kinematically representative of the thin and thick disks and the Hercules stream using the catalogue of Soubiran & Girard (2005). We have observed abundance trends and age…
In local disk galaxies such as our Milky Way, older stars generally inhabit a thicker disk than their younger counterparts. Two competing models have attempted to explain this result: one in which stars first form in thin disks that…
We use Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey data for 170 deg^2, recalibrated and transformed to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ugri photometric system, to study the distribution of near-turnoff main-sequence stars in the Galactic halo…
This paper presents an investigation of the outer disk structure by using data from a recent release of the 2 micron sky survey (2MASS). This 2MASS data show unambiguously that the stellar disk thickens with increasing distance from the…
We give independent proof of the deficit of stars in the in-plane central disc with respect to the predictions of a pure exponential density distribution. We use three different methods: 1) the inversion of the red clump giant distribution…
As the remnants of stars with initial masses $\lesssim$ 8 M$_{\odot}$, white dwarfs contain valuable information on the formation histories of stellar populations. In this paper, we use deep, high-quality, u-band photometry from the Canada…