Related papers: The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies in a constrai…
Building galaxy merger trees from a state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamics simulation, Horizon-AGN, we perform a statistical study of how mergers and smooth accretion drive galaxy morphologic properties above $z > 1$. More…
We investigate the formation of Milky-Way-mass galaxies using FIRE-2 LCDM cosmological zoom-in simulations by studying the orbital evolution of stars formed in the main progenitor of the galaxy, from birth to the present day. We classify in…
Galaxy merger histories correlate strongly with stellar mass, largely regardless of morphology. Thus, at fixed stellar mass, spheroids and discs share similar assembly histories, both in terms of the frequency of mergers and the…
We analyze predictions from two independently developed galaxy formation models to study the mechanisms, environments, and characteristic times of bulge formation in a LambdaCDM cosmogony. For each model, we test different prescriptions for…
There is a long-standing debate on the origin of the metal-poor stellar populations of the Milky Way (MW) bulge, with the two leading scenarios being that these populations are either i) part of a classical metal-poor spheroid or ii) the…
Feedback from star formation is thought to play a key role in the formation and evolution of galaxies, but its implementation in cosmological simulations is currently hampered by a lack of numerical resolution. We present and test a…
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…
Observational data have revealed a clear dichotomy in the [{\alpha}/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] diagram of the Milky Way thick and thin disc stars. Many recent studies have shown evidences of a co-evolution phase between the high- and low-{\alpha} disc…
We study the stellar discs and spheroids in eight simulations of galaxy formation within Milky Way-mass haloes in a Lambda Cold Dark Matter cosmology. A first paper in this series concentrated on disc properties. Here, we extend this…
The formation and chemical evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy is numerically simulated by developing a Monte Carlo approach to predict the elemental abundance gradients and other galactic features using the revised solar abundance. The…
The satellite galaxies of the Local Group provide us with an important probe of galaxy formation, evolution, and cosmology. The two large spirals that dominate this group -- the Milky Way and Andromeda -- are each host to tens of…
There is no doubt that the Milky Way is a barred galaxy; however, factors that establish its prominent morphology remain largely elusive and poorly comprehended. In this work, we attempt to constrain the history of the MW by tracing the…
In the current galaxy formation scenarios, two physical phenomena are invoked to build disk galaxies: hierarchical mergers and more quiescent external gas accretion, coming from intergalactic filaments. Although both are thought to play a…
Although the proximity of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) offers an opportunity to understand how mergers affect galaxies, uncertainty remains about M31's most important mergers. Previous studies focused individually on the giant stellar stream…
To probe the progenitors of the numerous massive spirals requires to dissect distant galaxy properties through spatially-resolved kinematics, detailed morphologies and photometry from UV to mid-IR. So far IMAGES is the only representative…
The formation and evolution of the Milky Way's disc, bar, and bulge remain fundamentally limited by the lack of a contiguous, Galaxy-wide, high-precision chemo-dynamical map. Key open questions - including the survival or destruction of the…
Aims: We study the effects of the cosmological assembly history on the chemical and dynamical properties of the discs of spiral galaxies as a function of radius. Methods: We make use of the simulated Milky-Way mass, fully-cosmological…
The current generation of galaxy simulations can resolve individual giant molecular clouds, the progenitors of dense star clusters. But the evolutionary fate of these young massive clusters, and whether they can become the old globular…
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…
We use a semi-analytic model of halo formation to study the dynamical history of giant field galaxies like the Milky Way. We find that in a concordance LCDM cosmology, most isolated disk galaxies have remained undisturbed for 8-10 Gyr, such…