Related papers: Disc heating: possible link between weak bars and …
In cold dark matter cosmology, the baryonic components of galaxies are thought to be mixed with and embedded in non-baryonic and non-relativistic dark matter, which dominates the total mass of the galaxy and its dark matter halo. In the…
Past studies have long emphasised the key role played by galactic stellar bars in the context of disc secular evolution, via the redistribution of gas and stars, the triggering of star formation, and the formation of prominent structures…
We investigate thin and thick stellar disc formation in Milky-Way-mass galaxies using twelve FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in simulations. All simulated galaxies experience an early period of bursty star formation that transitions to a late-time…
Supermassive primordial stars with masses exceeding $\sim10^5\,M_{\odot}$ that form in atomically cooled halos are the leading candidates for the origin of high-redshift quasars with $z>6$. Recent numerical simulations, however, find that…
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 new models for the formation of disk galaxies that improve upon previous models by following the detailed accretion and cooling of the baryonic mass, and by using realistic distributions of specific angular momentum. Under the…
We examine a possible formation scenario of galactic thick discs with numerical simulations. Thick discs have previously been argued to form in clumpy disc phase in the high-redshift Universe, which host giant clumps of <10^9 M_sun in their…
Bars and spiral arms have played an important role as constraints on the dynamics and on the distribution of dark matter in the optical parts of disk galaxies. Dynamics linked to the dissipative nature of gas, and its transformation into…
The long-term evolution of stellar orbits bound to a massive centre is studied in order to understand the cores of star clusters in central regions of galaxies. Stellar trajectories undergo tiny perturbation, the origin of which is twofold:…
We develop a detailed model of the Milky Way (a ``prototypical'' disk galaxy) and extend it to other disks with the help of some simple scaling relations, obtained in the framework of Cold Dark Matter models. This phenomenological…
The recently emerging conviction that thick disks are prevalent in disk galaxies, and their seemingly ubiquitous old ages, means that the formation of the thick disk, perhaps more than any other component, holds the key to unravelling the…
The Galactic disk retains a vast amount of information about how it came to be, and how it evolved over cosmic time. However, we know very little about the secular processes associated with disk evolution. One major uncertainty is the…
We discuss the evolution of a disc galaxy due to the formation of a bar and, subsequently, a peanut. After the formation stage there is still considerable evolution, albeit slower. In purely stellar cases the pattern speed of the bar…
Observations suggest that the structural parameters of disk galaxies have not changed greatly since redshift 1. We examine whether these observations are consistent with a cosmology in which structures form hierarchically. We use SPH/N-body…
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,…
We carry out three-dimensional SPH simulations to study whether planets can survive in self-gravitating protoplanetary discs. The discs modelled here use a cooling prescription that mimics a real disc which is only gravitationally unstable…
Most stars form in a clustered environment. Therefore, it is important to assess how this environment influences the evolution of protoplanetary discs around young stars. In turn, this affects their ability to produce planets and ultimately…
Most, if not all, disk galaxies have a thin (classical) disk and a thick disk. In most models thick disks are thought to be a necessary consequence of the disk formation and/or evolution of the galaxy. We present the results of a study of…
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…
We use high resolution simulations to study the formation and distribution of galaxies within a cluster which forms hierarchically. We follow both dark matter and baryonic gas which is subject to thermal pressure, shocks and radiative…