Related papers: The Hierarchical Formation of the Galactic Disk
Galactic disks lie at the heart of many of the most pressing astrophysical puzzles. There are sophisticated kinetic theories that describe some aspects of galaxy disk dynamics, but extracting quantitative predictions from those theories has…
Accretion disks are an essential component in the paradigm of the formation of low-mass stars. Recent observations further identify disks surrounding low-mass pre-main-sequence stars perturbed by flybys. Whether disks around more massive…
We provide a set of numerical N-body simulations for studying the formation of the outer Milky Ways's stellar halo through accretion events. After simulating minor mergers of prograde and retrograde orbiting satellite halo with a Dark…
Ever since a thick disk was proposed to explain the vertical distribution of the Milky Way disk stars, its origin has been a recurrent question. We aim to answer this question by inspecting 19 disk galaxies with stellar mass greater than…
Long-term evolution of a stellar orbit captured by a massive galactic center via successive interactions with an accretion disc has been examined. An analytical solution describing evolution of the stellar orbital parameters during the…
Recent observational literature suggests that only a small number of colliding galaxies show substantial star formation enhancements before merging. Most have SFRs comparable to those of late-type field galaxies. Preliminary Spitzer studies…
Over the past 10 years abundant evidence has emerged that many (if not all) stars are born with circumstellar disks. Understanding the evolution of post-accretion disks can provide strong constraints on theories of planet formation and…
Spirals in galaxies have long been thought to be caused by gravitational instability in the stellar component of the disk, but discerning the precise mechanism had proved elusive. Tidal interactions, and perhaps bars, may provoke some…
Recent direct imaging discoveries suggest a new class of massive, distant planets around A stars. These widely separated giants have been interpreted as signs of planet formation driven by gravitational instability, but the viability of…
The far infrared background is a sink for the hidden aspects of galaxy formation. At optical wavelengths, ellipticals and spheroids are old, even at $z \sim 1.$ Neither the luminous formation phase nor their early evolution is seen in the…
The Milky Way satellite galaxies show a phase-space distribution that is not expected from the standard scenario of galaxy formation. This is a strong hint at them being of tidal origin, which would naturally explain their spacial…
Scattering of stars by interstellar clouds or massive clumps increases the stellar velocity dispersion and promotes a radial disk profile that is exponential. Here we show that such scattering reaches a steady-state distribution function of…
We use a set of high-resolution N-body simulations of binary galaxy mergers to show that the morphologies of the tidal features that are seen around a large fraction of nearby, massive ellipticals in the field, cannot be reproduced by…
I review the results of recent N--body/hydrodynamical simulations of the formation of galaxies in hierarchical universes, with special emphasis on the structure of dark matter halos, as well as on the mass and angular momentum of gaseous…
We develop an analytic model to calculate the rate at which galaxy disks are heated by dark matter substructures orbiting in their halos. The model takes into account the internal structure, mass function and accretion rate of satellites…
This paper reports simulations allowing for stochastic accretion and mass loss within closed and open systems modeled using a previously developed multi-population, multi-zone (halo, thick disk, thin disk) treatment. The star formation rate…
Planets form in disks around young stars. Interactions with these disks cause them to migrate and thus affect their final orbital periods. We suggest that the connection between planets and disks may be deeper and involve a symbiotic…
The long-term evolution of stellar orbits bound to a massive centre is studied in order to understand the cores of star clusters in central regions of galaxies. Stellar trajectories undergo tiny perturbation, the origin of which is twofold:…
Observations reveal that mature spiral galaxies consist of stars, gases and plasma approximately distributed in a thin disk of circular shape, usually with a central bulge. The rotation velocities quickly increase from the galactic center…
The present day chemical and dynamical properties of the Milky Way bear the imprint of the Galaxy's formation and evolutionary history. One of the most enduring and critical debates surrounding Galactic evolution is that regarding the…