Related papers: Milky Way evolution on a human timescale
Black holes are a common feature of the Universe. They are observed as stellar mass black holes spread throughout galaxies and as supermassive objects in their centres. Observations of stars orbiting close to the centre of our Galaxy…
Secular evolution gradually shapes galaxies by internal processes, in contrast to early cosmological evolution which is more rapid. An important driver of secular evolution is the flow of gas from the disk into the central regions, often…
Advances in extragalactic astronomy have prompted the development of increasingly realistic models which aim to describe the formation and evolution of galaxies. We review the philosophy behind one such technique, called semi-analytic…
The supermassive black hole candidate at the Galactic Center is surrounded by a parsec-scale star cluster, which contains a number of early type stars. The presence of such stars has been called a "paradox of youth" as star formation in the…
The central regions of galaxies show the presence of massive black holes and/or dense stellar systems. The question about their modes of formation is still under debate. A likely explanation of the formation of the central dense stellar…
In models of galaxy formation in a hierarchical Universe, elliptical galaxies form through the merging of smaller disk systems. These models yield a number of testable predictions if reliable techniques for determining the relative ages and…
For several decades now, open clusters have been used to study the structure and chemical evolution of the disk of our Galaxy. Due to the fact that their ages and metallicities can be determined with relatively good precision, and since…
A massive black hole resides in the center of most, perhaps all galaxies. The one in the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, provides a uniquely accessible laboratory for studying in detail the connections and interactions between a…
Galaxies form and evolve in the context of their local and large-scale environments. Their baryonic content that we observe with imaging and spectroscopy is intimately connected to the properties of their dark matter halos, and to their…
The growth of galaxies through adiabatic accretion of dark matter is one of the main drivers of galaxy evolution. By isolating it from other processes like mergers, we analyse how it affects the evolution of star clusters. Our study…
As stars traverse the Milky Way, their orbits evolve through perturbations that alter their orbital radii. These changes arise from two mechanisms: churning, which modifies angular momentum, and blurring, which induces eccentric orbits…
Galaxies with the mass of the Milky Way dominate the stellar mass density of the Universe but it is uncertain how and when they were assembled. Here we study progenitors of these galaxies out to z=2.5, using data from the 3D-HST and CANDELS…
Star formation history shows a gradual decline since the last 8-9 Gyr (z=1). The bulk of present-day stellar mass and metal content was formed at redshifts lower than 2-3, which is consistent with a hierarchical scenario of galaxy…
In hierarchical models of galaxy formation, ellipticals form from the merging of disk galaxies drawn together by gravity as their surrounding dark halos coalesce. Using semi-analytic techniques, we are able to follow the merging, star…
As stellar compositions evolve over time in the Milky Way, so will the resulting planet populations. In order to place planet formation in the context of Galactic chemical evolution, we make use of a large ($N = 5\,325$) stellar sample…
The formation of our Milky Way can be parsed qualitatively into different phases that resulted in its structurally different stellar populations: the halo and the disk components. Revealing a quantitative overall picture of the Galactic…
The Milky Way is the product of a complex evolution of generations of mergers, collapse, star formation, supernova and collisional heating, radiative and collisional cooling, and ejected nucleosynthesis. Moreover, all of this occurs in the…
A new view on our Galaxy has recently emerged, with large consequences on its formation scenarios. Not only new dwarf satellites have been detected, still orbiting and tidally disrupting, but also a multitude of stellar streams or tidal…
Chemical abundances provide important clues to the evolution of galaxies. Ionized nebulae are one of the main sources of chemical abundance measurements, especially in external galaxies. Studies of H II regions have shown that the overall…
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…