Related papers: The Red Halo Phenomenon
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…
A parameterized model of the mass distribution within the Milky Way is fitted to the available observational constraints. The most important single parameter is the ratio of the scale length R_d* of the stellar disk to R0. The disk and…
We explore the kinematics and orbital properties of a sample of red giants in the halo system of the Milky Way that are thought to have formed in globular clusters, based on their anomalously strong UV/blue CN bands. The orbital parameters…
We summarize and reanalyze observations bearing upon missing galactic baryons, where we propose a consistent picture for halo gas in L >~ L* galaxies. The hot X-ray emitting halos are detected to 50-70 kpc, where typically, M_hot(<50 kpc) ~…
The stellar mass - halo mass relation provides a strong basis for connecting galaxies to their host dark matter halos in both simulations and observations. Other observable information, such as the density of the local environment, can…
Fully cosmological, high resolution N-Body + SPH simulations are used to investigate the chemical abundance trends of stars in simulated stellar halos as a function of their origin. These simulations employ a physically motivated supernova…
We investigate the chemical and kinematic properties of the diffuse stellar haloes of six simulated Milky Way-like galaxies from the Aquarius Project. Binding energy criteria are adopted to defined two dynamically distinct stellar…
If the favored hierarchical cosmological model is correct, then the Milky Way system should have accreted and subsequently tidally destroyed ~100 low-mass galaxies in the past ~12 Gyr. We model this process using a hybrid semi-analytic plus…
New information on the relations between the Galactic disks, the halo, and satellite galaxies is being obtained from elemental abundances of stars having metallicities in the range -1.5 < [Fe/H] < -0.5. The first results for a sample of 26…
Galaxies are missing most of their baryons, and many models predict these baryons lie in a hot halo around galaxies. We establish observationally motivated constraints on the mass and radii of these haloes using a variety of independent…
The Milky Way's stellar halo, which extends to $>100$ kpc, encodes the evolutionary history of our Galaxy. However, most studies of the halo to date have been limited to within a few kpc of the Sun. Here, we characterize differences between…
Total mass-to-light ratio M/L_B for S0 - Irr galaxies, where M is the dynamical mass within the optical radius R_25, increases systematically with (B-V)_0 color, but slower than that is predicted by stellar population evolution models. It…
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…
Observations of density profiles of galaxies and clusters constrain the properties of dark matter. Formation of stable halos by collisional fluids with very low mass particles appears as the most probable interpretation, while halos formed…
Galaxy-galaxy weak lensing is a direct probe of the mean matter distribution around galaxies. The depth and sky coverage of the CFHT Legacy Survey yield statistically significant galaxy halo mass measurements over a much wider range of…
Li abundances in the bulk of low-mass metal-poor stars are well reproduced by stellar evolution models adopting a constant initial abundance. However, a small number of stars have exceptionally high Li abundances, for which no convincing…
We examine the most recent observational constraints arising from i) small-scale and large-scale Galactic dynamical properties, ii) star counts at faint magnitude and iii) microlensing experiments. From these constraints, we determine the…
The outer disk of the Milky Way Galaxy is warped and flared. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain these phenomena, but none have quantitatively reproduced both features. Recent work has demonstrated that the Galactic stellar…
The physical properties of the faint blue galaxy population are reviewed in the context of observational progress made via deep spectroscopic surveys and Hubble Space Telescope imaging of field galaxies at various limits, and theoretical…
We study the distribution of nearby thick disc and halo stars in subspaces defined by their characteristic orbital parameters. Our aim is to establish the origin of the structure reported in particular, in the $R_{\rm max}-z_{\rm max}$…