Related papers: The barred inner Milky Way: dynamical models from …
The spiral structure of the Milky Way can be simulated by adopting percolation theory, where the active zones are produced by the evolution of many supernova (SN). Here we assume conversely that the percolative process is triggered by…
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…
The Gaia mission has triggered major developments in the field of Galactic dynamics in recent years, which we discuss in this review. The structure and kinematics of all Galactic components - disc, bar/bulge and halo - are now mapped in…
Studying our Galaxy, the Milky Way (MW), gives us a close-up view of the interplay between cosmology, dark matter, and galaxy formation. In the next decade our understanding of the MW's dynamics, stellar populations, and structure will…
We describe a new phenomenon of `bar damping' that may have played an important role in shaping the Milky Way bar and bulge as well as its spiral structure. We use a collisionless N-body simulation of a Milky Way-like galaxy initially…
Observations of the stellar content of the Milky Way's bulge helps to understand the stellar content and evolution of distant galaxies. In this brief overview I will first highlight some recent work directed towards measuring the history of…
A short overview is presented of several topics concerning the evolution of the Milky Way (MW) in a cosmological context. In particular, the metallicity distribution of the MW halo is derived analytically and the halo metallicity and…
The four main findings about the age and abundance structure of the Milky Way bulge based on microlensed dwarf and subgiant stars are: (1) a wide metallicity distribution with distinct peaks at [Fe/H]=-1.09, -0.63, -0.20, +0.12, +0.41; (2)…
The history of the formation and evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy is found in the spatial distribution, kinematics, age and chemical abundance distributions of long-lived stars. From this fossil record one can in principle extract the star…
The Milky Way (MW) bulge is a fundamental Galactic component for understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies, in particular our own. The ESO Public Survey VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea is a deep near-IR survey mapping the…
Observations of the stellar content of the bulge of the Milky Way can provide critical guidelines for the interpretation of observations of distant galaxies, in particular for understanding their stellar content and evolution. In this brief…
Cosmologists have often considered the Milky Way as a typical spiral galaxy, and its properties have considerably influenced the current scheme of galaxy formation. Here we compare the general properties of the Milky Way disk and halo with…
An accurate knowledge of the dark matter distribution in the Milky Way is of crucial importance for galaxy formation studies and current searches for particle dark matter. In this paper we set new dynamical constraints on the Galactic dark…
Recently the commissioning APOGEE observations of the Galactic bulge reported that a significant fraction of stars ($\sim10%$) are in a cold ($\sigma_{\rm V} \approx 30$ km/s) high velocity peak (Galactocentric radial velocity $\approx 200$…
We review observational evidence bearing on the formation of a prototypical large spiral galaxy, the Milky Way. New ground- and space-based studies of globular star clusters and dwarf spheroidal galaxies provide a wealth of information to…
We discuss the results of the first model of the gas dynamics in the Milky Way in the presence of two bars: the large scale primary bar or boxy bulge and a secondary bar in the Galactic center region. We have obtained an accurate potential…
The motion of the baryonic components of the Milky Way is governed by both luminous and dark matter content of the Galaxy. Thus, the dynamics of the Milky Way globular clusters can be used as tracers to infer the mass model of the Galaxy up…
The Galactic bulge is a tumultuous dense region of space, packed with stars separated by far smaller distances than those in the Solar neighborhood. A quantification of the frequency and proximity of close stellar encounters in this…
A parameterized model of the mass distribution within the Milky Way is fitted to the available observational constraints. The most important single parameter is the ratio of the scale length R_d* of the stellar disk to R0. The disk and…
Recent advances from astronomical surveys have revealed spatial, chemical, and kinematical inhomogeneities in the inner region of the stellar halo of the Milky Way Galaxy. In particular, large spectroscopic surveys, combined with Gaia…