Related papers: Disc heating: possible link between weak bars and …
The nature of vertical heating of disk stars in the inner as well as the outer region of disk galaxies is studied. The galactic bar (which is the strongest non-axisymmetric pattern in the disk) is shown to be a potential source of vertical…
Cosmological simulations predict that during the evolution of galaxies, the specific star formation rate continuously decreases. In a previous study we showed that generally this is not caused by the galaxies running out of cold gas but…
Galaxy evolution is in transition from an early universe dominated by hierarchical clustering to a future dominated by secular processes. These result from interactions involving collective phenomena such as bars, oval disks, spiral…
Using three fiducial Nbody+SPH simulations, we follow the merging of two disk galaxies with a hot gaseous halo component each, and examine whether the merger remnant can be a spiral galaxy. The stellar progenitor disks are destroyed by…
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…
I briefly review the growing evidence that thick stellar disks surround most edge-on disk galaxies. Recent studies show that these extragalactic thick disks have old ages, low metallicities, long scale lengths, and moderately flattened…
The evolution of a stellar bar transforms not only the galactic disk, but also the host dark matter halo. We present high resolution, fully self-consistent N-body simulations that clearly demonstrate that dark matter halo central density…
We investigate the influence of the cooling epoch on the formation of galaxies in a cold dark matter dominated universe. Isolated haloes, with circular speeds typical of spiral galaxies, have been selected from a low resolution numerical…
Superthin galaxies are a class of bulgeless, low surface brightness galaxies with strikingly high values of planar-to-vertical axes ratio $\rm(b/a> 10 - 20)$, possibly indicating the presence of an ultra-cold stellar disc. Using the…
Thin stellar discs on both galactic and nuclear, sub-kpc scales are believed to be fragile structures that would be easily destroyed in major mergers. In turn, this makes the age-dating of their stellar populations a useful diagnostics for…
We analyse disc heating and radial migration in N-body models of growing disc galaxies with thick and thin discs. Similar to thin-disc-only models, galaxies with appropriate non-axisymmetric structures reproduce observational constraints on…
We use the marginal stability condition for galactic disks and the stellar velocity dispersion data published by different authors to place upper limits on the disk local surface density at two radial scalelengths $R=2h$. Extrapolating…
We present a comprehensive series of $N$-body as well as $N$-body + SPH simulations to study the secular evolution of the structure of disk galaxies. Our simulations are organized in a hierarchy of increasing complexity, ranging from…
Stellar bars are the most common non-axisymmetric structures in galaxies and their impact on the evolution of disc galaxies at all cosmological times can be significant. Classical theory predicts that stellar discs are stabilized against…
New observations in favour of a significant role of secular evolution are reviewed: central star formation boosted in pseudo-bulge barred galaxies, relations between bulge and disk, evidence for rejuvenated bulges. Numerical simulations…
We use idealised N-body simulations of equilibrium discs in live and static haloes to study how dark matter co-evolution impacts the assembly of stellar particles into a bar and the halo response. Initial conditions correspond to a…
Observational and theoretical evidence that internal, slow ("secular") evolution reshapes galaxy disks is reviewed in Kormendy & Kennicutt (2004, ARAA, 42, 603). This update has three aims. First, I emphasize that this evolution is very…
Barred galaxies constitute about two thirds of observed disc galaxies. Bars affect not only the mass distribution of gas and stars, but also that of the dark matter. An elongation of the inner dark matter halo is known as the halo bar. We…
Using simulated galaxies in their cosmological context, we analyse how the flaring of mono-age populations (MAPs) influences the flaring and the age structure of geometrically-defined thick discs. We also explore under which circumstances…
One of the suggested thick disc formation mechanisms is that they were born quickly and in situ from a turbulent clumpy disc. Subsequently, thin discs formed slowly within them from leftovers of the turbulent phase and from material…