Related papers: Lambda-Cold Dark Matter, Stellar Feedback, and the…
Low-mass dwarf galaxies ($M_{\rm vir} \lesssim 10^9\rm\ M_\odot$) are fundamental cosmological building blocks, yet the physical processes driving their structural diversity remain poorly understood. Recent numerical simulations have…
(Abridged) We perform dissipationless N-body simulations to elucidate the dynamical response of thin disks to bombardment by cold dark matter (CDM) substructure. Our method combines (1) cosmological simulations of the formation of Milky Way…
We use a cosmological simulation of the Local Group to make quantitative and speculative predictions for direct detection experiments. Cold dark matter (CDM) halos form via a complex series of mergers, accretion events and violent…
We construct three extreme different scenarios of the star formation histories applicable to a sample of dwarf galaxies, based either on their present metallicity or their luminosity. The three possible scenarios imply different mechanical…
Context. Thanks to the heroic observational campaigns carried out in recent years we now have large samples of metal-poor stars for which measurements of detailed abundances exist. [...] These data hold important clues on the nature of the…
Motivated by the observation of extended stellar cores in dark matter (DM) dominated dwarf galaxies, this study investigates a simple mechanism by which stellar cores can form as a result of DM halo expansion. Several non-CDM models predict…
Despite recent success in forming realistic present-day galaxies, simulations still form the bulk of their stars earlier than observations indicate. We investigate the process of stellar mass assembly in low-mass field galaxies, a dwarf and…
We use numerical simulations to examine the substructure within galactic and cluster mass halos that form within a hierarchical universe. Clusters are easily reproduced with a steep mass spectrum of thousands of substructure clumps that…
Precise abundance ratios are determined for 94 dwarf stars with 5200 < Teff < 6300 K, -1.6 < [Fe/H] < -0.4, and distances D < 335 pc. Most of them have halo kinematics, but 16 thick-disk stars are included. Equivalent widths of atomic lines…
(Abridged) The relations between stellar ($M_\ast$), gas ($M_{\rm gas}$), baryonic ($M_{\rm bar} = M_\ast + M_{\rm gas}$), and dark matter halo mass ($M_{200}$) provide unique constraints on galaxy formation and cosmology. The shape of the…
We present 3D hydrodynamical simulations aimed to study the dynamical and chemical evolution of the interstellar medium in dwarf spheroidal galaxies. This evolution is driven by the explosions of Type II and Type Ia supernovae, whose…
Context. The origin of the large star-to-star variation of the [Eu/Fe] ratios observed in the extremely metal-poor (at [Fe/H]$\leq-3$) stars of the Galactic halo is still a matter of debate.\\ Aims. In this paper, we explore this problem by…
We have used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 5 to explore the overall structure and substructure of the stellar halo of the Milky Way using about 4 million color-selected main sequence turn-off stars. We fit…
The most metal-poor, high redshift damped Lyman-alpha systems (DLAs) provide a window to study some of the first few generations of stars. In this paper, we present a novel model to investigate the chemical enrichment of the near-pristine…
Halo globular clusters pose four succinct issues that must be solved in any scenario of their formation: single-age, single metallicity stellar populations; a lower limit ([Fe/H] ~ -2.3) to their average metallicity; comprising only 1% of…
Galaxy surveys have shown that luminous galaxies are mainly distributed in large filaments and galaxy clusters. The remaining large volumes are virtually devoid of luminous galaxies. This is in concordance with the formation of the…
Properties of galaxies vary systematically with the mass of their parent dark matter halos. This basic galaxy - halo connection shows a fair amount of scatter whose origin is not fully understood. Here, we study how differences in the halo…
We present numerical simulations to describe the evolution of pre-Galactic clouds in a model which is motivated by cold dark matter simulations of hierarchical galaxy formation. We adopt a SN-induced star-formation mechanism within a model…
Small-scale structure is studied in the context of dissipative dark matter, arising for instance in models with a hidden unbroken Abelian sector, so that dark matter couples to a massless dark photon. The dark sector interacts with ordinary…
We investigate the non-spherical density structure of dark halos of the dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies in the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies based on revised axisymmetric mass models from our previous work. The models we adopt here…