Related papers: Origin of Radially Increasing Stellar Scaleheight …
Spiral galaxies offer a unique opportunity to study the role of star formation in galaxy evolution and to test various theoretical star formation schemes. I review some recent relevant work on the evolution of spiral galaxies. Detailed…
Recent spectroscopic observations in the Milky Way suggest that the chemically defined thick disk (stars with high [alpha/Fe] ratios and thus old) has a significantly smaller scale-length than the thin disk. This is in apparent…
Radial O/H abundance gradients derived from HII regions, hot stars and planetary nebulae are combined with [Fe/H] gradients from open cluster stars in order to derive an independent [O/Fe] x [Fe/H] relation for the galactic disk. A…
Precession is a very common phenomenon for small-scale astronomical objects. However, the precession of galactic disks, occurring on a scale larger than kilo-parsec, has barely been studied in the literature. Quantifying this precession in…
Spectra of HII regions obtained with Gemini/GMOS are used to derive the radial metallicity gradients of four small, low-mass spiral galaxies. The analysis of the outer disk of one of them, NGC 1058, uncovers the characteristic flattening…
We seek to understand the origin of radial migration in spiral galaxies by analyzing in detail the structure and evolution of an idealized, isolated galactic disk. To understand the redistribution of stars, we characterize the…
A typical galactic disc has a finite thickness and in addition to stars it also contains a finite amount of interstellar gas. Here, we investigate the physical impact of the finite thickness of a galactic disc on the disc stability against…
Deep photometric surveys of the Milky Way have revealed diffuse structures encircling our Galaxy far beyond the "classical" limits of the stellar disk. This paper reviews results from our own and other observational programs, which together…
We investigate the properties of spiral shocks in a steady, adiabatic, non-axisymmetric, self-gravitating, mass-outflowing accretion disk around a compact object. We obtain the accretion-ejection solutions in a gaseous galactic disk and…
If thick disks are ubiquitous and a natural product of disk galaxy formation and/or evolution processes, all undisturbed galaxies which have evolved during a significant fraction of a Hubble time should have a thick disk. The late-type…
We investigate bulge and disk scaling relations using a volume-corrected sample of early- to intermediate-type disk galaxies in which, importantly, the biasing flux from additional nuclear components has been modeled and removed. Structural…
The Galactic disk is one of the main components of the Milky Way, which contributes most of the luminosity. Its structure is essential for understanding the formation and evolution of the Milky Way. Using 174,443 K-type dwarf stars observed…
Estimates of the dynamical surface mass density at the solar Galactocentric distance are commonly derived assuming that the disk is in vertical equilibrium with the Galactic potential. This assumption has recently been called into question,…
We explore the evolution of the stellar mass-size relation of galaxies of different morphological types and specifically bulge and disk components. We use a sample of $\sim35,000$ galaxies within a redshift range $0 < z < 1$, and stellar…
Context: The hierarchical model of galaxy formation suggests that galaxies are continuously growing. However, our position inside the Milky Way prevents us from studying the disk edge. Truncations are low surface brightness features located…
New deep VLA D array HI observations of the highly inclined nearby spiral galaxy NGC 2683 are presented. Archival C array data were processed and added to the new observations. To investigate the 3D structure of the atomic gas disk, we made…
We used the ugr magnitudes of 1,437,467 F-G type main-sequence stars with metal abundance -2<[Fe/H]<+0.2 dex and estimated radial and vertical metallicity gradients for high Galactic-latitude fields (b>50) of the Milky Way Galaxy. The…
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.…
A vertical metallicity gradient in the Milky Way bulge is well-established. Yet, its origin has not been fully understood under the Galactic secular evolution scenario. We construct single-disk and triple-disk $N$-body models with an…
In this review, I discuss just three aspects of the stability and evolution of galactic discs. (1) I first review our understanding of the bar instability and how it can be controlled. Disc galaxies in which the orbital speed does not…