Related papers: Milky Way evolution on a human timescale
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…
Metals -- heavy elements synthesized during various phases of stellar evolution or during supernova explosions -- play a fundamental role in shaping galaxy evolution. In fact, their relative abundances, spatial distribution, and scaling…
Because of its nearness to Earth, the centre of the Milky Way is the only galaxy nucleus in which we can study the characteristics, distribution, kinematics, and dynamics of the stars on milli-parsec scales. We have accurate and precise…
The formation and evolution of disk galaxies in the cosmological context is studied. We consider the observable properties of disk galaxies and treat the disk formation and galactic evolutionary processes in a self-consistent fashion. We…
At the turn of the decade we arguably move from the era of precision cosmology to the era of galaxy formation. One approach to this problem will be via the construction of comprehensive galaxy samples. In this review I take the opportunity…
In current $\Lambda$CDM galaxy formation scenarios, at least three physical phenomena could contribute to the mass assembly: monolithic collapse, hierarchical mergers and more quiescent external gas accretion, with secular evolution. The…
Studies of the ages, abundances, and motions of individual stars in the Milky Way provide one of the best ways to study the evolution of disk galaxies over cosmic time. The formation of the Milky Way's barred inner region in particular is a…
Major astrophysical questions related to the formation and evolution of structures, and more specifically of galaxy groups and clusters, will still be open in the coming decade and beyond: what is the interplay of galaxy, supermassive black…
Since stellar populations enhance particular element abundances according to the yields and lifetimes of the stellar progenitors, the chemical evolution of galaxies serves as one of the key tools that allows the tracing of galaxy evolution.…
The Milky Way is made up of a central bar, a disk with embedded spiral arms, and a dark matter halo. Observational and theoretical constraints for the characteristic parameters of these components will be presented, with emphasis on the…
Bulges are of different types, morphologies and kinematics, from pseudo-bulges, close to disk properties (Sersic index, rotation fraction, flatenning), to classical de Vaucouleurs bulges, close to elliptical galaxies. Secular evolution and…
Major progress has been made over the last few years in understanding hydrodynamical processes on cosmological scales, in particular how galaxies get their baryons. There is increasing recognition that a large part of the baryons accrete…
Observations made using large ground-based and space-borne telescopes have probed cosmic history all the way from the present-day to a time when the Universe was less than a tenth of its present age. Earlier on lies the remaining frontier,…
The formation of galaxies can be understood in terms of the assembly patterns of each type of galactic component. To perform this kind of analysis, is necessary to define some criteria to separate those components. Decomposition methods…
This article reviews the prevailing paradigm for how galaxies and larger structures formed in the universe: gravitational instability. Basic observational facts are summarized to motivate the standard cosmological framework underlying most…
I review the subject of the cosmological evolution of galaxies, including different aspects of growth in disk galaxies, by focussing on the angular momentum problem, mergers, and their by-products. I discuss the alternative to merger-driven…
In this series of lectures I discuss the basic principles and the modelling of the chemical evolution of galaxies. In particular, I present models for the chemical evolution of the Milky Way galaxy and compare them with the available…
What the future holds for the stellar populations of the Milky Way Galaxy may (optimistically) be predicted by study of their past histories, as written in the chemical abundance distributions, angular momentum distributions, velocity…
Understanding the formation history of massive galaxies is one of most popular and longstanding problems in astronomy, with observations and theory addressing how and when these systems assembled. Since the most massive galaxies in today's…
Knowledge of ages for stars formed over a galaxy's lifetime is fundamental to understand its formation and evolution. However, stellar ages are difficult to obtain since they cannot be measured from observations, being comparison with…