Related papers: Evolution of Galactic Discs: Multiple Patterns, Ra…
Star formation in galaxies is triggered by a combination of processes, including gravitational instabilities, spiral wave shocks, stellar compression, and turbulence compression. Some of these persist in the far outer regions where the…
We present evidence that isolated growing discs, subject to internal spiral perturbations, thicken due to both heating \emph{and} radial migration. We show this by demonstrating that the thickness and vertical velocity dispersions of coeval…
(Abridged) We analyze the evolution of 42 spiral galaxies in the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey, using extinction-corrected UV, optical and near-infrared radial profiles to probe the emission of stars of different ages as a…
We seek to understand the origin of radial migration in spiral galaxies by analyzing in detail the structure and evolution of an idealized, isolated galactic disk. To understand the redistribution of stars, we characterize the…
We perform collisionless N-body simulations to investigate the evolution of the structural and kinematical properties of simulated thick disks induced by the growth of an embedded thin disk. The thick disks used in the present study…
We use a suite of numerical simulations to investigate the mechanisms and effects of radial migration of stars in disk galaxies like the Milky Way (MW). An isolated, collisionless stellar disk with a MW-like scale-height shows only the…
The outer disks of galaxies present a unique laboratory for studying the process of disk formation. A considerable fraction of observed disks exhibit a break in their surface brightness profiles. The ubiquity of these features points to a…
Our understanding of how the size of galaxies has evolved over cosmic time is based on the use of the half-light (effective) radius as a size indicator. Although the half-light radius has many advantages for structurally parameterising…
We present our recent results on the cosmic evolution of the outskirst of disk galaxies. In particular we focus on disk-like galaxies with stellar disk truncations. Using UDF, GOODS and SDSS data we show how the position of the break (i.e.…
Aims: The physics driving features such as breaks observed in galaxy surface brightness (SB) profiles remains contentious. Here, we assess the importance of stellar radial motions in shaping their characteristics. Methods: We use the…
We present deep optical imaging of three face-on disk galaxies together with a detailed description of the reduction and calibration methods used, in order to measure the intrinsic shape of their outer stellar edges. Whereas it is now well…
We have performed a high mass and force resolution simulation of an idealized galaxy forming from dissipational collapse of gas embedded in a spherical dark matter halo. The simulation includes star formation and effects of stellar…
We study the radial migration of stars driven by recurring multi-arm spiral features in an exponential disk embedded in a dark matter halo. The spiral perturbations redistribute angular momentum within the disk and lead to substantial…
The early stages of a galaxy's evolution leave an imprint on its metallicity distribution. We discuss the origins and evolution of radial metallicity gradients in discs of spiral galaxies using an analytical chemical evolution model. We…
Aims. Using a suite of cosmological chemodynamical disc galaxy simulations, we assess how (a) radial metallicity gradients evolve with scaleheight; (b) the vertical metallicity gradients change through the thick disc; and (c) the vertical…
We study the role of radial motions of stars and gas on the evolution of abundance profiles in the Milky Way disk. We investigate, in a parametrized way, the impact of radial flows of gas and radial migration of stars induced mainly by the…
Canonical theory predicts galaxies grow "inside-out", producing their observed negative radial age gradient. This picture is challenged by galaxies' `U-shaped' colour profiles -- indicating reversed age gradient -- explained by either…
We summarize the results obtained from our suite of chemical evolution models for spiral disks, computed for different total masses and star formation efficiencies. Once the gas, stars and star formation radial distributions are reproduced,…
A simple algorithm is employed to deproject the two dimensional images of a pilot sample of 12 high-quality images of edge-on disk galaxies and to study their intrinsic 3 dimensional stellar distribution. We examine the radial profiles of…
We study the relations between luminosity and chemical abundance profiles of spiral galaxies, using detailed models for the chemical and spectro-photometric evolution of galactic discs. The models are ``calibrated'' on the Milky Way disc…