Related papers: Disk galaxy evolution: from the Milky Way to high-…
For several decades now, open clusters have been used to study the structure and chemical evolution of the disk of our Galaxy. Due to the fact that their ages and metallicities can be determined with relatively good precision, and since…
High resolution gravity plus smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations are used to study the formation of galaxies within the context of hierarchical structure formation. The simulations have sufficient dynamic range to resolve from ten…
Bulges are a major galaxy component in the nearby universe, and are one of the primary features that differentiates and defines galaxies. The origin of bulges can be directly probed in part by examining distant galaxies to search for high…
We introduce a model which uses semi-analytic techniques to trace formation and evolution of galaxy disks in their cosmological context. For the first time we model the growth of gas and stellar disks separately. In contrast to previous…
Global star formation is the key to understanding galaxy disk formation. This in turn depends on gravitational instability of disks and continuing gas accretion as well as minor merging. A key component is feedback from supernovae. Primary…
Surveys of distant galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope and from the ground have shown that there is only mild evolution in the relationship between radial size and stellar mass for galactic disks from z~1 to the present day. Using a…
The dramatic size evolution of early-type galaxies from z ~ 2 to 0 poses a new challenge in the theory of galaxy formation, which may not be explained by the standard picture. It is shown here that the size evolution can be explained if the…
How large disk galaxies have evolved in, and out of, the blue cloud of actively star-forming galaxies as a function of environment and time is an outstanding question. Some of the largest disks become systems like M31, M33 and the Milky Way…
The forwards approach to galaxy formation and evolution is extremely powerful but leaves several questions unanswered. Foremost among these is the origin of disks. A backwards approach is able to provide a more realistic treatment of star…
We use a cosmological galactic evolutionary approach to model the Milky Way. A detailed treatment of the mass aggregation and dynamical history of the growing dark halo is included, together with a self consistent physical treatment for the…
The formation and evolution of galactic disks are complex phenomena, where gas and star dynamics are coupled through star formation and the related feedback. The physical processes are so numerous and intricate that numerical models focus,…
[Abridge] In the first paper of this series (paper I) we presented a new approach for studying the chemo-odynamical evolution in disk galaxies, focusing on the Milky Way. Here we extend these results to different distances from the Galactic…
The formation of thick stellar disks in spiral galaxies is studied. Simulations of gas-rich young galaxies show formation of internal clumps by gravitational instabilities, clump coalescence into a bulge, and disk thickening by strong…
The Universe is now extensively populated by discy galaxies with coherent galaxy-wise stellar rotation. This disc prevalence has been deemed a late-time phenomenon because the penetrating cold gaseous streams in the early Universe…
I review some recent progress made in our understanding of galaxy evolution and the cosmic history of star formation. Like bookends, the results obtained from deep ground-based spectroscopy and from the Hubble Deep Field imaging survey put…
Recent observations have shown that star-forming galaxies like our own Milky Way evolve kinematically into ordered thin disks over the last ~8 billion years since z=1.2, undergoing a process of "disk settling." For the first time, we study…
We perform controlled N-body simulations of disc galaxies growing within live dark matter (DM) haloes to present-day galaxies that contain both thin and thick discs. We consider two types of models: a) thick-disc initial conditions to which…
The formation environment of stars in massive stellar clusters is similar to the environment of stars forming in galaxies at a redshift of 1 - 3, at the peak star formation rate density of the Universe. As massive clusters are still forming…
We present a phenomenological model for understanding the origins and evolution of galaxy morphologies from a phenomenological perspective. The model includes an observationally motivated prescription for star formation in galaxy disks, as…
We present theoretical results on the galactic abundance gradients of several chemical species for the Milky Way disk, obtained using an improved version of the two-infall model of Chiappini, Matteucci, & Gratton (1997) that incorporates a…