Related papers: A Self-Consistent Dynamical Model for the {\sl COB…
The Milky Way has a barred bulge. This article summarizes the current understanding of the main structural parameters and pattern speed of the bar, and compares predicted values for the microlensing optical depth with the bulge microlensing…
We present an axisymmetric, equilibrium model for late-type galaxies which consists of an exponential disk, a Sersic bulge, and a cuspy dark halo. The model is specified by a phase space distribution function which, in turn, depends on the…
We estimate the optical depth to self-lensing by stars in the Galactic bulge using the HST star counts of Holtzman et al and Zoccali et al as extrapolated by Gould into the brown-dwarf and remnant regimes and deprojected along the line of…
More than 50 per cent of present-day massive disc galaxies show a rotating stellar bar. Their formation and dynamics have been widely studied both numerically and observationally. Although numerical simulations in the $\Lambda$CDM…
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…
We show by numerical simulations that a purely stellar dynamical model composed of an exponential disc, a cuspy bulge, and an NFW halo with parameters relevant to the Milky Way Galaxy is subject to bar formation. Taking into account the…
We describe an improved, practical method for constructing galaxy models that match an arbitrary set of observational constraints, without prior assumptions about the phase-space distribution function (DF). Our method is an extension of…
We use Schwarzschild's orbit superposition method to build self-consistent models of elliptical galaxies with scale-free potentials. Our exhaustive study of all physical shapes and central densities for galaxies with scale-free potentials…
Near infrared images from the COBE satellite presented the first clear evidence that our Milky Way galaxy contains a boxy shaped bulge. Recent years have witnessed a gradual paradigm shift in the formation and evolution of the Galactic…
Motivated by the finding that the observed surface brightness profile of many galactic nuclei are well fit by double-power-laws, we explore a range of spherical self-consistent dynamical models with this light profile. We find that the…
It has been known that recent microlensing results towards the bulge imply mass densities that are surprisingly high given dynamical constraints on the Milky Way mass distribution. We derive the maximum optical depth towards the bulge that…
Following the suggestion of Gould and Depoy (1998) we investigate the feasibility of studying the brightest microlensing events towards the Galactic bulge using a small aperture (~10 cm) telescope. We used one of the HAT telescopes to…
One of the challenges related to stellar bars is to accurately determine the length of the bar in a disc galaxy. In the literature, a wide variety of methods have been employed to measure the extent of a bar. However, a systematic study on…
We introduce a method for modeling disk galaxies designed to take full advantage of data from integral field spectroscopy (IFS). The method fits equilibrium models to simultaneously reproduce the surface brightness, rotation and velocity…
We apply the barred Schwarzschild method developed by Tahmasebzadeh et al. (2022) to a barred S0 galaxy, NGC 4371, observed by IFU instruments from the TIMER and ATLAS3D projects. We construct the gravitational potential by combining a…
Much of the inner Milky Way's (MW) global rotation and velocity dispersion patterns can be reproduced by models of secularly-evolved, bar-dominated bulges. More sophisticated constraints, including the higher moments of the line-of-sight…
The dynamics of a barred galaxy depends on the pattern speed of its bar. The only direct method for measuring the pattern speed of a bar is the Tremaine-Weinberg technique. This method is best suited to the analysis of the distribution and…
Over the past decade, microlensing has developed into a powerful tool to study stellar astrophysics, especially stellar atmospheres, stellar masses, and binarity. I review this progress. Stellar atmospheres can be probed whenever the source…
The optimization and interpretation of microlensing surveys depends on having an accurate model of the Milky Way. However, existing population synthesis Galactic modeling tools often perform poorly in replicating the stellar contents of the…
A model of the bar and old stellar disk of the Galaxy has been derived from the survey of the Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE) of the Cosmic Background Explorer at wavelengths of 1.25, 2.2, 3.5, and 4.9 microns. It agrees very…