Related papers: Milky Way evolution on a human timescale
We modeled the evolution of the Milky Way to trace the distribution in space and time of four prerequisites for complex life: the presence of a host star, enough heavy elements to form terrestrial planets, sufficient time for biological…
The evolution of galaxies is driven strongly by dynamical processes including internal instabilities, tidal interactions and mergers. The cluster environment is a useful laboratory for studying these effects. I present recent results on…
The Milky Way is a unique laboratory, where stellar properties can be measured and analyzed in detail. In particular, stars in the older populations encode information on the mechanisms that led to the formation of our Galaxy. In this…
In a Lambda CDM Universe, galaxies grow in mass both through star formation and through addition of already-formed stars in galaxy mergers. Because of this partial decoupling of these two modes of galaxy growth, I discuss each separately in…
We study the effect of a massive central singularity on the structure of a triaxial galaxy using N-body simulations. Starting from a single initial model, we grow black holes with various final masses Mh and at various rates, ranging from…
The Galactic disk retains a vast amount of information about how it came to be, and how it evolved over cosmic time. However, we know very little about the secular processes associated with disk evolution. One major uncertainty is the…
In the present universe, the gas is a minor component of giant galaxies, and its dominant phase is atomic (HI). During galaxy evolution in cosmic times, models predict that gas fractions were much higher in galaxies, and gas phases could be…
The Milky Way serves as a template for understanding the formation and evolution of late-type massive disk galaxies since we can obtain detailed chemical and kinematic information for large samples of individual stars. However, the early…
Galaxies evolve under the influence of gas flows between their interstellar medium and their surrounding gaseous halos known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM). The CGM is a major reservoir of galactic baryons and metals, and plays a key…
A standard paradigm is now available for the recent evolution (z < 10) of structure on galactic and larger scales. Most of the matter is assumed to be dark and dissipationless and to cluster hierarchically from gaussian initial conditions.…
The primary present-day observables upon which theories of galaxy evolution are based are a system's morphology, dynamics, colour, and chemistry. Individually, each provides an important constraint to any given model; in concert, the four…
Studies of stellar populations, understood to mean collections of stars with common spatial, kinematic, chemical, and/or age distributions, have been reinvigorated during the last decade by the advent of large-area sky surveys such as SDSS,…
In the current galaxy formation scenarios, two physical phenomena are invoked to build disk galaxies: hierarchical mergers and more quiescent external gas accretion, coming from intergalactic filaments. Although both are thought to play a…
APOGEE and Gaia data have revealed that the Milky Way's structure appears to have evolved through three distinct kinematic phases. First, at early cosmic times, the Milky Way was a disordered protogalaxy, which subsequently "spun up" to a…
The growth of galaxies is one of the key problems in understanding the structure and evolution of the universe and its constituents. Galaxies can grow their stellar mass by accretion of halo or intergalactic gas clouds, or by merging with…
A new model for the formation of active galaxies is described. A key feature of this model is the idea that the birth of black holes in the centers of supergiant galaxies is strongly influenced by the large-scale distribution of matter in…
The Milky Way galaxy is observed to have multiple components with distinct properties, such as the bulge, disk, and halo. Unraveling the assembly history of these populations provides a powerful test to the theory of galaxy formation and…
I present a brief review of some of the most recent and active topics of star formation process in the Milky Way using mid and far infrared observations, and motivated by the research being carried out by our science group using data…
We perform $N$-body simulations of star clusters in time-dependant galactic potentials. Since the Milky Way was built-up through mergers with dwarf galaxies, its globular cluster population is made up of clusters formed both during the…
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…