Related papers: The infant Milky Way
Galactic halos are known to grow hierarchically, inside out. This implies a correlation between the infall lookback time of satellites and their binding energy. Cosmological simulations predict a linear relation between the infall lookback…
We use a particle tagging technique to dynamically populate the N-body Via Lactea II high-resolution simulation with stars. The method is calibrated using the observed luminosity function of Milky Way satellites and the concentration of…
Understanding how the Milky Way's present-day structure was shaped by past major mergers is a key goal of Galactic archaeology. The chemical and dynamical structure of the Galaxy retains the imprint of such events, including a major…
We construct a simple, robust model of the chemical evolution of galaxies from high to low redshift, and apply it to published observations of damped Lyman-alpha quasar absorption line systems (DLAs). The elementary model assumes quiescent…
We discuss recent observations of stars located close to the symmetry plane of the Milky Way, and examine them in the context of theories of Galaxy formation and evolution. The kinematics, ages, and compositions of thin disk stars in the…
Several emerging links between high-redshift observational cosmology and the Galactic fossil evidence found in the kinematics, metallicities and ages of Milky Way stars are discussed. In a flat Cold Dark Matter model with $\Omega\simeq 0.3$…
We have implemented a simple model to identify the likely sites of the first stars and galaxies in the high-resolution simulations of the formation of galactic dark matter halos of the Aquarius Project. The first star in a galaxy like the…
We use N-body simulations to explore the origin and a plausible orbit for the Orphan Stream, one of the faintest substructures discovered so far in the outer halo of our Galaxy. We are able to reproduce its position, velocity and distance…
The study of dwarf galaxies in groups is a powerful tool for investigating galaxy evolution, chemical enrichment and environmental effects on these objects. Here we present results obtained for dwarf galaxies in the Centaurus A complex, a…
We investigate the chemical evolution of the Milky Way disc exploring various schemes of recent (last several Gyr) star formation episodes, as reported in recent observational works. We use a semi-analytical model with parametrized radial…
How do galaxies form and evolve? This is one of the most puzzling questions in astronomy. Galaxy assembly takes place throughout the entire history of the Universe, but our understanding of it is hampered by the unfortunate fact that we can…
The population of Milky Way satellite galaxies is of great interest for cosmology, fundamental physics, and astrophysics. They represent the faint end of the galaxy luminosity function, are the most dark-matter dominated objects in the…
$\Lambda$CDM cosmology predicts the hierarchical formation of galaxies which build up mass by merger events and accreting smaller systems. The stellar halo of the Milky Way has proven to be useful a tool for tracing this accretion history.…
We combine the latest observationally motivated constraints on stellar properties in dark matter haloes, along with data-driven predictions for the atomic (HI) and molecular (H$_2$) gas evolution in galaxies, to derive empirical…
We propose a general framework leveraging the halo-galaxy connection to link galaxies observed at different redshift in a statistical way, and use the link to infer the redshift evolution of the galaxy population. Our tests based on…
Dwarf galaxies are the least massive, most abundant, and most widely distributed type of galaxies. Hence, they are key to testing theories of galaxy and Universe evolution. Dwarf galaxies sufficiently close to have their gas and stellar…
We discuss how knowledge of the whole evolutionary history of dwarf galaxies, including details on the early star formation events, can provide insight on the origin of the different dwarf galaxy types. We suggest that these types may be…
We study seven simulated disc galaxies, three with a quiescent merger history, and four with mergers in their last 9 Gyr of evolution. We compare their structure at z=0 by decomposing them into "mono-age populations" (MAPs) of stars within…
Accreted stellar populations are comprised of the remnants of destroyed galaxies, and often dominate the `stellar haloes' of galaxies such as the Milky Way (MW). This ensemble of external contributors is a key indicator of the past assembly…
In the $\Lambda$CDM paradigm, stellar halos form through the accretion and disruption of satellite galaxies. We introduce new semi-analytic modeling within the SatGen framework to track the ex-situ stellar components of Milky Way--like…