Related papers: How stars formed in warps settle into (and contami…
We study the self-consistent, linear response of a galactic disc to non-axisymmetric perturbations in the vertical direction as due to a tidal encounter, and show that the density distribution near the disc mid-plane has a strong impact on…
We present a measurement of the age distribution of stars residing in spiral disks and dwarf galaxies. We derive a complete star formation history of the ~140 Mpc^3 covered by the volume-limited sample of galaxies in the Advanced Camera for…
We examine the consequences of radiatively driven warping of accretion disks surrounding pre-main-sequence stars. These disks are stable against warping if the luminosity arises from a steady accretion flow, but are unstable at late times…
Recent results from spectroscopic and astrometric surveys of nearby stars suggest that the stellar disk of our Milky Way (MW) was formed quite early, within the first few billion years of its evolution. Chemokinematic signatures of disk…
Evidence for wave-like corrugations are well established in the Milky Way and in nearby disc galaxies. These were originally detected as a displacement of the interstellar medium about the midplane, either in terms of vertical distance or…
Recent theoretical work suggests that it may be common for stars in the disks of spiral galaxies to migrate radially across significant distances in the disk. Such migrations are a result of resonant scattering with spiral arms and move the…
A simple model for the evolution of disc galaxies is presented. We adopt three numbers from observations of the Milky Way disc, the local surface mass density, the stellar scale length (of the assumedly exponential disc) and the amplitude…
In the standard model of structure formation, galaxies form in the centre of dark matter haloes that develop as a result of inhomogeneities in the primordial mass distribution of the Universe. Afterwards, galaxies grow by means of…
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…
An overview of our current understanding of the formation and evolution of star clusters is given, with main emphasis on high-mass clusters. Clusters form deeply embedded within dense clouds of molecular gas. Left-over gas is cleared within…
The accretion of the intergalactic medium onto the gaseous disc is used to explain the generation of galactic warps. A cup-shaped distortion is expected, due to the transmission of the linear momentum; but, this effect is small for most…
The inner region of the accretion disk around a magnetized star (T Tauri star, white dwarf or neutron star) is subjected to magnetic torques that induce warping and precession of the disk. These torques arise from the interaction between…
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…
Approximately half of all disc galaxies exhibit appreciable warps in both their stellar and HI discs. The typical warp amplitude is small (a few degrees), and only becomes noticeable at the periphery of the galaxy disc. As a result, warps…
Recent observations have revealed a variety of young star clusters, including embedded systems, young massive clusters, and associations. We study the formation and dynamical evolution of these clusters using a combination of simulations…
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…
As part of a stellar population sampling program, a series of photometric probes at various field sizes and depths have been obtained in a low extinction window in the galactic anticentre direction. Very deep CCD frames probe the most…
We perform controlled N-body simulations of disc galaxies growing within live dark matter (DM) haloes to present-day galaxies that contain both thin and thick discs. We consider two types of models: a) thick-disc initial conditions to which…
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…
We study the shape of the thick disc using photometric data at high and intermediate latitudes from SDSS and 2MASS surveys. We use the population synthesis approach using an ABC-MCMC method to characterize the thick disc shape, scale…