Related papers: Why does the Milky Way have a bar?
[Abridged] We map the stellar age distribution ($\lesssim 1$ Gyr) across a 6kpc$\,\times\,$6kpc area of the Galactic disc to constrain our Galaxy's recent star-formation history. Our modelling draws on the sample of Zari et al. (2021) that…
We develop a chemical evolution model in order to study the star formation history of the Milky Way. Our model assumes that the Milky Way is formed from a closed box-like system in the inner regions, while the outer parts of the disc…
We present the results of two-component (disc+bar) and three-component (disc+bar+bulge) multiwavelength 2D photometric decompositions of barred galaxies in five SDSS bands ($ugriz$). This sample of $\sim$3,500 nearby ($z<0.06$) galaxies…
Context. Bars are elongated structures developed by a large fraction of disk galaxies in their central few kiloparsecs. However, the bar formation process is still not fully understood, particularly the role played by the galaxy environment…
Recent discoveries made with JWST observations include a significant number of barred galaxies at high redshift. Their origin remains unclear and their presence seems difficult to reproduce in cosmological simulations of galaxy formation…
The Milky Way's bar dominates the orbits of stars and the flow of cold gas in the inner Galaxy, and is therefore of major importance for Milky Way dynamical studies in the Gaia era. Here we discuss the pronounced peanut shape of the…
In the standard $\Lambda$ cold dark matter ($\Lambda$CDM) cosmology, the existence of massive pure-disc galaxies remains challenging within the hierarchical framework and is key to understanding the evolutionary history of Milky Way-like…
We study the growth of stellar discs of Milky Way-sized galaxies using a suite of cosmological simulations. We calculate the half-mass axis lengths and axis ratios of stellar populations split by age in isolated galaxies with stellar mass…
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…
Most of the observed and simulated galactic bars are symmetric in the face-on view. However, there are indeed cases of bars that are off-center with respect to the disk or have an asymmetric shape. The only well-known example showing both…
Gas interior to the bar of the Milky Way has recently been shown as the closest example of a Low Ionization (Nuclear) Emission Region--LI(N)ER--in the universe. To better understand the nature of this gas, a sample of face-on galaxies with…
We present a summary of recent assessments of the mass distribution in disk galaxies. Of issue in order to characterize galaxy formation models is to determine the relative fraction of baryons and dark matter at all radii in galaxies. For…
Disc dominated galaxies can be difficult to accommodate in a hierarchical formation scenario like $\Lambda$CDM, where mergers are an important growth mechanism. However, observational evidence indicates that these galaxies are common. We…
We use N-body simulations of bar formation in isolated galaxies to study the effect of bulge mass and bulge concentration on bar formation. Bars are global disk instabilities that evolve by transferring angular momentum from the inner to…
Although stellar bars are prevalent in local galaxies, unbarred galaxies constitute a significant fraction, particularly at high redshifts. While some galaxies are unbarred by nature due to stability against the bar instability, several…
Detailed observations of the nearest star-forming regions in the Milky Way (MW) provide the ultimate benchmark for studying star formation. The extent to which the results of these Galaxy-based studies can be extrapolated to extragalactic…
To understand the formation of the Milky Way's prominent bar it is important to know whether stars in the bar differ in the chemical element composition of their birth material as compared to disk stars. This requires stellar abundance…
Reconstructing the star formation history (SFH) of disk galaxies is central to understanding their growth and evolution, yet such estimates can be strongly biased by stellar radial migration over cosmic time. Using 186 Milky Way (MW) and…
Observational studies are finding stars believed to be relics of the earliest stages of hierarchical mass assembly of the Milky Way (i.e., proto-Galaxy). In this work, we contextualize these findings by studying the masses, ages, spatial…
The heavy element abundance profiles in galaxies place stringent constraint on galaxy growth and assembly history. Low-redshift galaxies generally have a negative metallicity gradient in their gas and stars. Such gradients are thought to be…