Related papers: Cosmology and the Stellar Halo

A new view on our Galaxy has recently emerged, with large consequences on its formation scenarios. Not only new dwarf satellites have been detected, still orbiting and tidally disrupting, but also a multitude of stellar streams or tidal…

Halo stars orbit within the potential of the Milky Way and hence their kinematics can be used to understand the underlying mass distribution. However, the inferred mass distribution depends sensitively upon assumptions made on the density…

We present preliminary results from a series of high-resolution N-body simulations that focus on 8 dark matter halos each of order a million particles within the virial radius. We follow the time evolution of hundreds of individually…

Currently only a small number of Milky Way (MW) stars are known to exist beyond 100 kpc from the Galactic center. Though the distribution of these stars in the outer halo is believed to be sparse, they can provide evidence of more recent…

We study the stellar population history and chemical evolution of the Milky Way (MW) in a hierarchical LCDM model for structure formation. Using a Monte Carlo method based on the semi-analytical EPS formalism, we reconstruct the merger tree…

We develop a new method to account for the finite lifetimes of stars and trace individual abundances within a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation. At variance with previous methods, based on the storage of the (binned) past star…

We study the detailed structure of galaxies at redshifts z > 2 using cosmological simulations with improved modeling of the interstellar medium and star formation. The simulations follow the formation and dissociation of molecular hydrogen,…

If dark matter particle can be decelerated due to its dissipative self scattering, except for sinking at the galaxy scale to speed up structure formation, it can also be accreted onto local celestial bodies such as the Sun, forming a…

Taking advantage of the ultra-deep near-infrared imaging obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, we detect and explore for the first time the properties of the stellar haloes of two Milky Way-like galaxies…

We provide new constraints on the connection between galaxies in the local universe, identified by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and dark matter halos and their constituent substructures in the $\Lambda$CDM model using WMAP7…

In a hierarchically formed Universe, galaxies accrete smaller systems that tidally disrupt as they evolve in the host's potential. We present a complete catalogue of disrupting galaxies accreted onto Milky Way-mass haloes from the Auriga…

We employ numerical simulations and simple analytical estimates to argue that dark matter substructures orbiting in the inner regions of the Galaxy can be efficiently destroyed by disk shocking, a dynamical process known to affect globular…

We present a new cosmological probe for galaxy clusters, the halo sparsity. This characterises halos in terms of the ratio of halo masses measured at two different radii and carries cosmological information encoded in the halo mass profile.…

This paper shows that gravitating bodies travelling through the Galaxy can trap lighter interstellar particles that pass nearby with small relative velocities onto temporarily-bound orbits. The capture mechanism is driven by the Galactic…

Recent N-body simulations show that the formation of a present-day, galaxy sized dark matter halo in the CDM cosmogony in general consists of an early fast collapse phase, during which the potential associated with a halo is established,…

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…

We present an analysis of the large-scale structure of the halo of the Andromeda galaxy, based on the Pan-Andromeda Archeological Survey (PAndAS), currently the most complete map of resolved stellar populations in any galactic halo. Despite…

Neutralino dark matter leads to the formation of numerous earth mass dark matter haloes at redshifts z\approx 60 (Diemand et al. 2005). These abundant CDM micro-haloes have cuspy density profiles that can easily withstand the Galactic tidal…

We use 666 blue horizontal branch (BHB) stars from the 2Qz redshift survey to map the Galactic halo in four dimensions (position, distance and velocity). We find that the halo extends to at least 100 kpc in Galactocentric distance, and…

We study how structural properties of globular clusters and dwarf galaxies are linked to their orbits in the Milky Way halo. From the inner to the outer halo, orbital energy increases and stellar-systems gradually move out of internal…