Related papers: Evolution of action-space coherence in a Milky Way…
We study the degree of angular substructure in the stellar position distribution of young members of Galactic star-forming regions, looking for correlations with distance from cluster center, surface number density of stars, and local…
I review observational studies of the large-scale star formation process in nearby galaxies. A wealth of new multi-wavelength data provide an unprecedented view on the interplay of the interstellar medium and (young) stellar populations on…
Our understanding of the dynamical processes which control the structure and evolution of the interaction region between an accretion disk and the central star is reviewed. If the central star is unmagnetized, this interaction is in the…
The inner few hundred parsecs of the Milky Way harbours gas densities, pressures, velocity dispersions, an interstellar radiation field and a cosmic ray ionisation rate orders of magnitude higher than the disc; akin to the environment found…
Using a sample of 91 galaxies distributed over 27 Compact Groups of Galaxies (CGs), we define an index that allows us to quantify their level of activity, be it AGN or star formation. By combining the mean activity index with the mean…
We present new proper motions from the 10 m Keck telescopes for a puzzling population of massive, young stars located within 3.5" (0.14 pc) of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center. Our proper motion measurements have…
We investigate the kinematic signatures induced by spiral and bar structure in a set of simulations of Milky Way-sized spiral disc galaxies. The set includes test particle simulations that follow a quasi-stationary density wave-like…
One of the most promising tracers of the Galactic potential in the halo region are stellar streams. However, individual stream fits can be limited by systematic biases. To study these individual stream systematics, we fit streams in Milky…
Recent observations of young embedded clumpy clusters and statistical identifications of binary star clusters have provided new insights into the formation process and subsequent dynamical evolution of star clusters. The early dynamical…
We identify migrating stars in an N-body simulation of a Milky-Way-like disk. Outward migration can occur when a star in a low eccentricity orbit lags a short-lived local spiral arm density peak. We interpret short lived local density…
Stellar streams originating in disrupted dwarf galaxies and star clusters are observed around the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. Such substructures are the important tracers that record how the host haloes have accreted progenitor galaxies.…
It is now clear that the stars in the Solar neighbourhood display large-scale coherent vertical breathing motions. At the same time, Milky Way-like galaxies experience tidal interactions with satellites/companions during their evolution.…
We study the role of radial migration of stars on the chemical evolution of the Milky Way disk. In particular, we are interested in the impact of that process on the local properties of the disk (age-metallicity relation and its dispersion,…
Direct comparisons between galaxy simulations and observations that both reach scales < 100 pc are strong tools to investigate the cloud-scale physics of star formation and feedback in nearby galaxies. Here we carry out such a comparison…
Stellar streams record the accretion history of their host galaxy. We present a set of simulated streams from disrupted dwarf galaxies in 13 cosmological simulations of Milky Way (MW)-mass galaxies from the FIRE-2 suite at $z=0$, including…
Studying star formation in spiral arms tells us not only about the evolution of star formation, and molecular clouds, but can also tell us about the nature of spiral structure in galaxies. I will address both these topics using the results…
Studying the nature of spiral arms is essential for understanding the formation of the intricate disc structure of the Milky Way. The European Space Agency's Gaia mission has provided revolutionary observational data that have uncovered…
We present an analysis of the radial age gradients for the stellar halos of five Milky Way mass-sized systems simulated as part of the Aquarius Project. The halos show a diversity of age trends, reflecting their different assembly…
Context. Stellar tidal streams are the result of tidal interactions between a central galaxy and lower mass systems like satellite galaxies or globular clusters. For the Local Group, many diffuse substructures have been identified and their…
The stellar-dynamical evolution of bound star clusters during the first few Myr is dominated by binary-binary and binary-star interactions, the rapid sinking of the most massive stars to the centre of the clusters and mass loss from…