Related papers: Disk Heating, Galactoseismology, and the Formation…
The outer disk of the Milky Way Galaxy is warped and flared. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain these phenomena, but none have quantitatively reproduced both features. Recent work has demonstrated that the Galactic stellar…
Near-field observations may provide tight constraints - i.e. "boundary conditions" - on any model of structure formation in the Universe. Detailed observational data have long been available for the Milky Way (e.g. Freeman $\&$…
We use a series of high-resolution N-body simulations of a `Milky-Way' halo, coupled to semi-analytic techniques, to study the formation of our own Galaxy and of its stellar halo. Our model Milky Way galaxy is a relatively young system…
We use a series of high-resolution simulations of a `Milky-Way' halo coupled to semi-analytic methods to study the formation of our own Galaxy and of its stellar halo. The physical properties of our model Milky Way, as well as the age and…
The formation of galactic discs and the efficiency of star formation within them are issues central to our understanding of galaxy formation. We have developed a detailed and versatile model of disc formation which combines the strengths of…
Motivated by the presence of numerous dark matter clumps in the Milky Way's halo as expected from the cold dark matter cosmological model, we conduct numerical simulations to examine the heating of the disk. We construct an initial galaxy…
The evolution of the Milky Way disk, which contains most of the stars in the Galaxy, is affected by several phenomena. For example, the bar and the spiral arms of the Milky Way induce radial migration of stars and can trap or scatter stars…
The structure and kinematics of the recognized stellar components of the Milky Way are explored, based on well-determined atmospheric parameters and kinematic quantities for 32360 calibration stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)…
The study of the Milky Way stellar discs in the context of galaxy formation is discussed. In particular we explore the properties of the Milky Way disc using a new sample of about 550 dwarf stars for which we have recently obtained…
Stellar haloes form through the disruption of satellite galaxies over time, making them a promising observable for constraining galaxy merger histories. We use a dynamical decomposition technique to isolate the stellar haloes of Milky…
Our understanding of the Milky Way disk is rapidly improving with the recent advent of the high quality and vast amount of observational data. We summarize our current view of the structure of the Milky Way disk, such as the masses and…
I discuss various proposed formation scenarios for the metal-poor components of the Milky Way Galaxy, emphasising the stellar halo and the thick disk. Interactions and accretion played a significant role in Galactic evolution, in particular…
Stars and their kinematics provide one of the tools available for studies of the shapes of galaxies and their halos. In this review I focus on two specific applications: the shape of the Milky Way dark halo and the shape of the LMC disk.…
Most of the visible mass in a typical spiral galaxy is distributed in a thin disk, with a radial extent much larger than its thickness. While the planar disk structure, including non-axisymmetric features such as spiral structure, has been…
Galaxies are surrounded by large halos of hot gas which must be replenished as the gas cools. This led Norman & Ikeuchi (1989) to propose the chimney model of the interstellar medium, which predicts that there should be on the order of a…
Stellar halos of galaxies retain crucial clues to their mass assembly history. It is in these galactic components that the remains of cannibalised galactic building blocks are deposited. For the case of the Milky Way, the opportunity to…
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…
The last 10-20 years has seen a profound shift in views of how the Galaxy's halo formed. The idea of a monolithic early collapse of a single system (Eggen, Lynden-Bell and Sandage 1962) has been challenged by observations at high redshift…
Previous studies have shown that disk warps can result from galaxy mergers. Recent research indicates a noticeable decline in the rotation curve (RC) of the Milky Way (MW), suggesting the need for a new low-mass model to describe its…
We employ an improved methodology to insert live stellar disks into high-resolution dark matter simulations of Milky Way sized halos, allowing us to investigate the fate of thin stellar disks in the tumultuous environment of cold dark…