Related papers: Dynamical mass distribution and velocity structure…
We use kinematical and chemical properties of 754 Corot stars to characterise the stellar populations of the Milky Way disc in three beams close the Galactic plane. From the atmospheric parameters derived in Gazzano et al. (2010) with the…
We study the kinematics of the Galactic thin and thick disk populations using stars from the RAVE survey's second data release together with distance estimates from Breddels et al. (2009). The velocity distribution exhibits the expected…
The Milky Way is a barred galaxy whose central bulge has a box/peanut shape and consists of multiple stellar populations with different orbit distributions. This review describes dynamical and chemo-dynamical equilibrium models for the…
We measure the 3D kinematic structures of the young stars within the central 0.5 parsec of our Galactic Center using the 10 m telescopes of the W.~M.~Keck Observatory over a time span of 25 years. Using high-precision measurements of…
The Galactic bulge, that is the prominent out-of-plane over-density present in the inner few kiloparsecs of the Galaxy, is a complex structure, as the morphology, kinematics, chemistry and ages of its stars indicate. To understand the…
We derive new constraints on the mass, rotation, orbit structure and statistical parallax of the Galactic old nuclear star cluster (NSC) and the mass of the supermassive black hole. We combine star counts and kinematic data from Fritz et al…
The Milky Way nuclear star cluster (MW NSC) has been used as a template to understand the origin and evolution of galactic nuclei and the interaction of nuclear star clusters with supermassive black holes. It is the only nuclear star…
The nuclear region of the Milky Way is believed to host a nuclear stellar disk, co-spatial with the gaseous central molecular zone. Previous kinematical studies detected faster rotation for the stars belonging to the nuclear stellar disk,…
High spatial resolution, near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy of the nuclear star cluster have given key new insights about the dynamics, evolution and mass distribution in the Milky Way Center. The central parsec is powered by a cluster…
(abridged) In this paper we revisit the problem of inferring the innermost structure of the Milky Way's nuclear star cluster via star counts, to clarify whether it displays a core or a cusp around the central black hole. Through image…
We present the kinematic results from our ARGOS spectroscopic survey of the Galactic bulge of the Milky Way. Our aim is to understand the formation of the Galactic bulge. We examine the kinematics of about 17,400 stars in the bulge located…
$\Lambda$CDM cosmology predicts the hierarchical formation of galaxies which build up mass by merger events and accreting smaller systems. The stellar halo of the Milky Way has proven to be useful a tool for tracing this accretion history.…
During the last $\sim$ 30 Myr the nuclear stellar disk in the Galactic center has been the most prolific star forming region of the Milky Way when averaged by volume. Remarkably, the combined mass of the only three clusters present today in…
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…
The nuclear stellar disc (NSD) is a dense stellar structure at the centre of our Galaxy. Given its proximity, it constitutes a unique laboratory to understand other galactic nuclei. Nevertheless, the high crowding and extinction hamper its…
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…
The nuclear star cluster of the Milky Way is a unique target in the Universe. Contrary to extragalactic nuclear star clusters, using current technology it can be resolved into tens of thousands of individual stars. This allows us to study…
We present spatially extended gas kinematics at parsec-scale resolution for the nuclear regions of four nearby disk galaxies, and model them as rotation of a gas disk in the joint potential of the stellar bulge and a putative central black…
We explore the dynamics of stellar discs in the close vicinity of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) by means of direct $N$-body simulations. We show that an isolated nuclear stellar disc exhibits anisotropic mass segregation meaning that…
The distribution of late-type (old) stars in the inner parsec of the Milky Way is very different than expected for a relaxed population around a supermassive black hole. Instead of a density cusp, there is a 0.5 pc core. This article…