Related papers: The Galactic Bar
There is no doubt that the Milky Way is a barred galaxy; however, factors that establish its prominent morphology remain largely elusive and poorly comprehended. In this work, we attempt to constrain the history of the MW by tracing the…
I present results from the modeling of stellar bars in nearly 300 barred galaxies in the local universe through parametric multi-component multi-band image fitting. The surface brightness radial profile of bars is described using a Sersic…
Our Milky Way Galaxy is a typical large spiral galaxy, representative of the most common morphological type in the local Universe. We can determine the properties of individual stars in unusual detail, and use the characteristics of the…
Using simulations of box/peanut- (B/P-) shaped bulges, we explore the nature of the X-shape of the Milky Way's bulge. An X-shape can be associated with a B/P-shaped bulge driven by a bar. By comparing in detail the simulations and the…
Both the three-dimensional density of red clump giants and the gas kinematics in the inner Galaxy indicate that the pattern speed of the Galactic bar could be much lower than previously estimated. Here, we show that such slow bar models are…
Bulges are commonly believed to form in the dynamical violence of galaxy collisions and mergers. Here we model the stellar kinematics of the Bulge Radial Velocity Assay (BRAVA), and find no sign that the Milky Way contains a classical bulge…
The Galactic bulge, that is the prominent out-of-plane over-density present in the inner few kiloparsecs of the Galaxy, is a complex structure, as the morphology, kinematics, chemistry and ages of its stars indicate. To understand the…
We have done a detailed study on the structural and kinematical properties of lenticular and early- and late-type spiral galaxies with bars, aiming to explore the formation and evolution processes of stellar bars in galaxies, and their…
The assembly of the Milky Way bulge is an old topic in astronomy, one now in a period of renewed and rapid development. The dominant scenario for bulge formation is that of the Milky Way as a nearly pure disk galaxy, with the inner disk…
Using $N$-body simulations we study the buckling instability in a galactic bar forming in a Milky Way-like galaxy. The galaxy is initially composed of an axisymmetric, exponential stellar disk embedded in a spherical dark matter halo. The…
Identifying the structure of our Galaxy has always been fraught with difficulties, and while modern surveys continue to make progress building a map of the Milky Way, there is still much to understand. The arm and bar features are important…
Many barred galaxies, possibly including the Milky Way, have cusps in the centres. There is a widespread belief, however, that usual bar instability taking place in bulgeless galaxy models is impossible for the cuspy models, because of the…
Results from the modelling of bars in nearly 300 galaxies are used to test predictions from theoretical work on the evolution of bars. Correlations are found between bar ellipticity and boxiness, between bar strength and normalised size,…
The number and properties of observed gravitational microlensing events depend on the distribution and kinematics of stars and other compact objects along the line of sight. In particular, precise measurements of the microlensing optical…
The observed gas dynamics in the Milky Way can only be explained by a bar in the galactic center. Such a bar is directly visible in the near-IR maps of the bulge, where it causes a distinctive asymmetric light distribution pattern. Another…
Using recent observational data, we construct a set of multi-component equilibrium models of the disk of a Milky Way-like galaxy. The disk dynamics are studied using collisionless-gaseous numerical simulations, based on the joined…
We review the observed morphological, photometric, and kinematic properties of boxy/peanut (B/P) shape bulges. Nearly half of the bulges in the nearby edge-on galaxies have these characteristics, which fraction is similar to the observed…
(abridged) By comparing the distribution of dust and gas in the central regions of the Galaxy, we aim to obtain new insights into the properties of the offset dust lanes leading the bar's major axis in the Milky Way. On the one hand, the…
We analyse the effects on the predictions for the microlensing searches toward the Galactic bulge coming from the fact that not all the stars monitored belong to the bulge itself, but that a non--negligible fraction of them actually are in…
A high optical depth to gravitational microlensing towards the galactic bulge is consistent with current models of the galactic bar. The low optical depth towards the LMC can probably be accounted for by the ordinary stars in our galaxy and…