Related papers: More dynamical models of our Galaxy
We demonstrate that in N-body simulations of isolated disc galaxies there is numerical vertical heating which slowly increases the vertical velocity dispersion and the disc thickness. Even for models with over a million particles in a disc,…
We explore the implications for the high redshift universe of ``state-of-the-art'' models for the chemical and spectrophotometric evolution of spiral galaxies. The models are based on simple ``scaling relations'' for discs, obtained in the…
We study the kinematics of the Galactic thin and thick disk populations using stars from the RAVE survey's second data release together with distance estimates from Breddels et al. (2009). The velocity distribution exhibits the expected…
Using three-dimensional stellar kinematic data from simulated galaxies, we examine the efficacy of a Jeans equation analysis in reconstructing the total disk surface density, including the dark matter, at the "Solar" radius. Our simulation…
The vertical structure of stellar discs provides key constraints on their formation and evolution. Nearby spirals, including the Milky Way, host thin and thick components that may arise either from an early turbulent phase or from the…
We construct a new family of models of our Galaxy in which dark matter and disc stars are both represented by distribution functions that are analytic functions of the action integrals of motion. The potential that is self-consistently…
We analyse the phase-space structure of simulated thick discs that are the result of a significant merger between a disc galaxy and a satellite. Our main goal is to establish what would be the characteristic imprints of a merger origin for…
The velocity dispersion of stars in the solar neighbourhood thin disc increases with time after star formation. Nordstrom et al. (2004) is the most recent observational attempt to constrain the age-velocity dispersion relation. They fitted…
We address the puzzling observational indications for very "cold" galactic discs at redshifts $z \gtrsim 3$, an epoch when discs are expected to be highly perturbed. Using a high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulation, we identify such…
We present the derivation of distribution functions for the first four members of a family of disks, previously obtained in (MNRAS, 371, 1873, 2006), which represent a family of axially symmetric galaxy models with finite radius and well…
The kinematical properties of the Galactic Thick Disk are studied using absolute proper motions from the SPM3 Catalog and 2MASS near-infrared photometry for a sample of ~1200 red giants in the direction of the South Galactic Pole. The…
(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…
In 2012, we applied a three-dimensional formulation to kinematic measurements of the Galactic thick disk and derived a surprisingly low dark matter density at the solar position. This result was challenged by Bovy & Tremaine (2012, ApJ,…
We develop a novel method to simultaneously determine the vertical potential, force and stellar $z-v_z$ phase space distribution function (DF) in our local patch of the Galaxy. We assume that the Solar Neighborhood can be treated as a…
Various processes have been proposed to explain how galaxy discs acquire their thickness. A simple diagnostic for ascertaining this ``heating'' mechanism is provided by the ratio of the vertical to radial velocity dispersion components. In…
We present an evolutionary disc model for the thin disc in the solar cylinder based on a continuous star formation history and a continuous dynamical heating of the stellar subpopulations. The vertical distribution of the stellar…
We present a simple method for fitting parametrized mass models of the Milky Way to observational constraints. We take a Bayesian approach which allows us to take into account input from photometric and kinematic data, and expectations from…
We present measurements of the velocity dispersion profile (VDP) for galaxy groups in the final data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). For groups of given mass we estimate the redshift-space cross-correlation function (CCF)…
We characterize stellar, gas, and dark matter mass distributions for 17 nearby massive disk galaxies from the PHANGS sample. This allows us to compute the gravitational potential that vertically confines the interstellar gas and determines…
We revisit the dynamics of razor-thin, stone-cold, self-gravitating discs. By recasting the equations into standard cylindrical coordinates, the linearised vertical dynamics of an exponential disc can be followed for several gigayears on a…