Related papers: Substructure and Tidal Debris in Local Galaxies: M…
Interactions between galaxies are common and are an important factor in determining their physical properties such as position along the Hubble sequence and star-formation rate. There are many possible galaxy interaction mechanisms,…
To account for the observed differential metallicity distribution (DMD) of the Milky Way halo, a semi-analytical model is presented in the framework of the hierarchical merging paradigm for structure formation. It is assumed that the Milky…
We have simulated the evolution of tidal debris in the Galactic halo in order to guide our ongoing survey to determine the fraction of halo mass accreted via satellite infall. Contrary to naive expectations that the satellite debris will…
Gravitational interactions and mergers are shaping and reshaping galaxies throughout the observable universe. While observations of interacting galaxies at low redshifts yield detailed information about the processes at work, observations…
We review the observational evidences for tidal dwarf galaxies, a class of small galaxies formed out of the tidal debris of collisions between massive galaxies. Tidal dwarfs are found far from the interacting parent galaxies, associated to…
If the favored hierarchical cosmological model is correct, then the Milky Way system should have accreted ~100-200 luminous satellite galaxies in the past \~12 Gyr. We model this process using a hybrid semi-analytic plus N-body approach…
The information extracted from large galaxy surveys with the likes of DES, DESI, Euclid, LSST, SKA, and WFIRST will be greatly enhanced if the resultant galaxy catalogues can be cross-correlated with one another. Predicting the nature of…
Stellar shells are low surface brightness features, created during nearly head-on galaxy mergers from the debris of the tidally disrupted satellite. Here, we investigate the formation and evolution mechanism of shells in six dimensions (3d…
The satellites of the Milky Way and Andromeda represent the smallest galaxies we can observe in our Universe. In this series of papers we aim to shed light on their formation and evolution using cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. In…
We report here on a survey of N-body simulations of encounters between spherical galaxies. Initial systems are isotropic Jaffe models. Different sets of mass ratios, impact parameters and orbital energies are studied. Both merger remnants…
Context. Sheen and collaborators recently found that a surprisingly large portion (38%) of massive early-type galaxies in heavy clusters show strong merger-related disturbed features. This contradicts the general understanding that massive…
The ongoing large spectroscopic surveys of the Milky Way such as SEGUE and RAVE have enabled us to take a fresh look at the structure of the Galactic thin and thick disks, and how their structure fits within the framework of structure…
Recent studies using Gaia DR2 have identified a massive merger in the history of the Milky Way (MW) whose debris is markedly radial and counterrotating. This event, known as the Gaia-Enceladus/Gaia-Sausage (GE/GS), is also hypothesized to…
Hierarchical models of galaxy formation now provide a much closer match to observations than they did a few years ago. The progress has been achieved by adjusting the description of baryonic processes such as star formation and…
A number of mechanisms have been proposed to connect star-forming dwarf irregular galaxies with the formation of non-star-forming dwarf spheroidal galaxies, but distinguishing between these mechanisms has been difficult. We use the Via…
Overdensities in the radial phase space $(r,v_r)$ of the Milky Way's halo have previously been associated with the phase-mixed debris of a highly radial merger event, such as Gaia Sausage-Enceladus. We present and test an alternative theory…
Large galaxies are thought to form hierarchically, from the accretion and disruption of many smaller galaxies. Such a scenario should naturally lead to galactic phase-space distributions containing some degree of substructure. We examine…
Starburst galaxies are often found to be the result of galaxy mergers. As a result, galaxy mergers are often believed to lie above the galaxy main sequence: the tight correlation between stellar mass and star formation rate. Here, we aim to…
Galaxy cluster merger statistics are an important component in understanding the formation of large-scale structure. Unfortunately, it is difficult to study merger properties and evolution directly because the identification of cluster…
Within the Cold Dark Matter scenario the hierarchical merging paradigm is the natural result to form massive galactic halos by the minor mergers of sub-halos and, by this, inherently their stellar halo. Although this must be also invoked…