Related papers: Clues to the formation of the Milky Way's thick di…
We analyze high quality abundances data of solar neighborhood stars and show that there are two distinct regimes of [alpha/Fe] versus age which we identify as the epochs of the thick and thin disk formation. A tight correlation between…
The variation of metal production over time and its dilution in the interstellar medium depend on the star formation and gas accretion rates. Measuring age-chemistry relations across the Milky Way disk provides key constraints on the gas…
We study the evolution of Milky Way thick and thin discs in the light of the most recent observational data. In particular, we analyze abundance gradients of O, N, Fe and Mg along the thin disc as well as the [Mg/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] relations…
We employ the first two years of data from the near-infrared, high-resolution SDSS-III/APOGEE spectroscopic survey to investigate the distribution of metallicity and alpha-element abundances of stars over a large part of the Milky Way disk.…
We show that the bulge and the disk of the Milky Way (MW) at R$\lesssim$7~kpc are well described by a unique chemical evolution and a two-phase star-formation history (SFH). We argue that the populations within this inner disk, not the…
We present a model for the [alpha/Fe]-[Fe/H] distribution of stars in the inner Galaxy, R=3-5 kpc, measured as a function of vertical distance |z| from the midplane by Hayden et al. (2015, H15). Motivated by an "upside-down" scenario for…
Recent observations of the Milky Way and galaxies at high redshifts suggest that galaxy discs were already in place soon after the Big Bang. While the gas infall history of the Milky Way in the inner disc has long been assumed to be…
Standard chemical evolution models based on long-term infall are affected by a number of problems, evidenced by the analysis of the most recent data. Among these: (1) models rely on the local metallicity distribution, assuming its shape is…
We present a new chemical evolution model for the Galaxy that assumes three main infall episodes of primordial gas for the formation of halo, thick and thin disk, respectively. We compare our results with selected data taking into account…
Both simulations and observations suggest that the disk assembly of galaxies is governed by the interplay between coplanar gas inflow, ex-planar gas outflow and in-situ star formation on the disk, known as the leaky accretion disk. This…
We develop a chemical evolution model in order to study the star formation history of the Milky Way. Our model assumes that the Milky Way is formed from a closed box-like system in the inner regions, while the outer parts of the disc…
[Abridged] In this first paper of this series, we present a new approach for studying the chemo-dynamical evolution in disk galaxies, which consists of fusing disk chemical evolution models with compatible numerical simulations of galactic…
Recent spectroscopic observations in the Milky Way suggest that the chemically defined thick disk (stars with high [alpha/Fe] ratios and thus old) has a significantly smaller scale-length than the thin disk. This is in apparent…
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 separation of the Milky Way disk into a thin and thick component is supported by differences in the spatial, kinematic and metallicity distributions of their stars. These differences have led to the view that the thick disk formed early…
We compare the star-formation history and dynamics of the Milky Way (MW) with the properties of distant disk galaxies. During the first ~4 Gyr of its evolution, the MW formed stars with a high star-formation intensity (SFI), Sigma_SFR~0.6…
In this letter we examine the evolution of the radial metallicity gradient induced by secular processes, in the disk of an $N$-body Milky Way-like galaxy. We assign a [Fe/H] value to each particle of the simulation according to an initial,…
We report the first robust measurement of the Milky Way star formation history using the imprint left on chemical abundances of long-lived stars. The formation of the Galactic thick disc occurs during an intense star formation phase between…
The Milky Way serves as a template for understanding the formation and evolution of late-type massive disk galaxies since we can obtain detailed chemical and kinematic information for large samples of individual stars. However, the early…
Recent observations demonstrate that the thin and thick disks of the Galaxy have different chemical abundance trends and evolution timescales. The relative abundances of $\alpha$-elements in the thick Galactic disk are increased relative to…