Related papers: The Milky Way as a Key to Structural Evolution in …
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 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 determine the influence of the Milky Way's warp on the kinematics of stars across the disc, and therefore measure its precession rate and line of nodes under different assumptions. We do this by applying Jeans' first equation to a model…
It has long been known that a large fraction of disc galaxies are lopsided. We simulate three different mechanisms that can induce lopsidedness: flyby interactions, gas accretion from cosmological filaments and ram pressure from the…
Spiral patterns are important agents of galaxy evolution. In this review, I describe how the redistribution of angular momentum by recurrent transient spiral patterns causes the random speeds of stars to rise over time, metallicity…
In chemodynamical evolution models it is usually assumed that the Milky Way galaxy forms from the inside-out implying that gas inflows onto the disk decrease with galactocentric distance. Similarly, to reproduce differences between chemical…
Their ubiquity and extreme densities make star clusters probes of prime importance of galaxy evolution. Old globular clusters keep imprints of the physical conditions of their assembly in the early Universe, and younger stellar objects,…
Recent observations show that spiral galaxies are surrounded by extended gaseous halos as predicted by the hierarchical structure formation scenario. The origin and nature of extraplanar gas is often unclear since the halo is continuously…
We develop a detailed model of the Milky Way (a ``prototypical'' disk galaxy) and extend it to other disks with the help of some simple scaling relations, obtained in the framework of Cold Dark Matter models. This phenomenological…
We have recently identified a previously unknown radial migration mechanism resulting from the overlap of spiral and bar resonances in galactic discs (Minchev & Famaey 2010, Minchev et al. 2010). This new mechanism is much more efficient…
The motion of the baryonic components of the Milky Way is governed by both luminous and dark matter content of the Galaxy. Thus, the dynamics of the Milky Way globular clusters can be used as tracers to infer the mass model of the Galaxy up…
The secular evolution process which slowly transforms the morphology of a given galaxy over its lifetime through mostly internal dynamical mechanisms could naturally account for most of the observed properties of physical galaxies (Zhang…
Bars are common galactic structures in the local universe that play an important role in the secular evolution of galaxies, including the Milky Way. In particular, the velocity distribution of individual stars in our galaxy is useful to…
In this paper we address the issue of the origin of some observational properties of the galactic globular cluster system. After a preliminary study of some general properties of the main evolutionary processes, we investigate the evolution…
The Galactic center of the Milky-Way harbors a massive black hole (BH) orbited by a diverse population of young and old stars. A significant fraction of the youngest stars ($\sim4-7$ Myr) reside in a thin stellar disk with puzzling…
The Milky Way is a complex ecosystem, for which we can obtain detailed observations probing the physical mechanisms determining the interstellar medium. For a detailed comparison with observations, and to provide theories for missing…
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…
Current ideas on the formation of the Galaxy are reviewed. Many of the observed characteristics of our Milky Way System are consistent with a scenario in which the Galaxy formed inside out, with the inner part of it evolving by rapid…
An up-to-date overview of the recent history is given, aiming to present a helpful working guide to the literature and at the same time introduce key systems and observational results, starting from the Sun and going towards the Galactic…
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.…