Related papers: Is dynamic heating of stellar disk inevitable?
We perform fully self-consistent stellar dynamical simulations of the accretion of a companion ("satellite") galaxy by a large disk galaxy to investigate the interaction between the disk, halo, and satellite components of the system during…
We re-examine the age-velocity dispersion relation in the solar neighborhood using improved stellar age estimates that are based on Hipparcos parallaxes and recent stellar evolution calculations. The resulting relation shows that the Milky…
Star formation depends on the available gaseous "fuel" as well as galactic environment, with higher specific star formation rates where gas is predominantly molecular and where stellar (and dark matter) densities are higher. The partition…
The velocity dispersion of nearby stars in the Galactic disc is well known to increase substantially with age; this is the so-called Age-Velocity relation, and is interpreted as a ``heating'' of the disc as a function of time. We have…
We present results of numerical N-body simulations of a galactic stellar disk embedded into a spherical dark halo. The non-linear dynamics of bending instabilities developing in the disk is studied. The bending modes, axisymmetric and not,…
Disk galaxies evolve over time through processes that may rearrange both the radial mass profile and the metallicity distribution within the disk. This review of such slow changes is largely, though not entirely, restricted to…
We develop a physical model for how galactic disks survive and/or are destroyed in interactions. Based on dynamical arguments, we show gas primarily loses angular momentum to internal torques in a merger. Gas within some characteristic…
We use a set of high-resolution N-body simulations of the Galactic disk to study its interactions with the population of satellites predicted cosmologically. One simulation illustrates that multiple passages of massive satellites with…
Vertically extended, high velocity dispersion stellar distributions appear to be a ubiquitous feature of disc galaxies, and both internal and external mechanisms have been proposed to be the major driver of their formation. However, it is…
The extreme flatness of stellar discs in superthin galaxies is puzzling and the apparent dearth of these objects in cosmological simulation poses challenging problem to the standard cold dark matter paradigm. Irrespective of mergers or…
In the solar-neighbourhood, older stars have larger random velocities than younger ones. It is argued that the increase in velocity dispersion with time is predominantly a gradual process rather than one induced by discrete events such as…
In this work we update the L-Galaxies semi-analytic model (SAM) to better follow the physical processes responsible for the growth of bulges via disc instabilities (leading to pseudo-bulges) and mergers (leading to classical bulges). We…
We propose that turbulent heating, wave pressure and gas exchanges between different regions of disks play a dominant role in determining the preferred, quasi-equilibrium, self-similar states of gas disks on large-scales. We present simple…
We use a suite of idealised N-body simulations to study the impact of spurious heating of star particles by dark matter particles on the kinematics and morphology of simulated galactic discs. We find that spurious collisional heating leads…
We present the rotation velocities V and velocity dispersions sigma along the principal axes of seven elliptical galaxies less luminous than M_B= -19.5. These kinematics extend beyond the half-light radii for all systems in this…
By means of N-body/SPH simulations we investigate the morphological properties of thick disks formed through minor mergers. We show that the vertical surface density profile of the post-merger thick disk follows a sech function and has an…
The problem of dynamical heating of galactic discs by spiral density waves is discussed using the shearing sheet model. The secular evolution of the disc is described quantitatively by a diffusion equation for the distribution function of…
We discuss the stability of galactic disks in which the energy of interstellar clouds is gained in encounters with expanding supernova remnants and lost in inelastic collisions. Energy gain and loss processes introduce a phase difference…
We consider a thickness of stellar disks of late-type galaxies by analyzing the R and K_s band photometric profiles for two independent samples of edge-on galaxies. The main goal is to verify a hypotesis that a thickness of old stellar…
Deep photometric surveys of the Milky Way have revealed diffuse structures encircling our Galaxy far beyond the "classical" limits of the stellar disk. This paper reviews results from our own and other observational programs, which together…