Related papers: Dynamical Models for the Milky Way
Correlations between stellar chemistry and kinematics have long been used to gain insight into the evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy. Orbital angular momentum is a key physical parameter and it is often estimated from three-dimensional…
Galaxies are faint enough when one observes just their light distributions, but in studying their full dynamical structure the stars are spread over the six dimensions of phase space rather than just the three spatial dimensions, making…
Starting from an axisymmetric equilibrium distribution function (DF) in action space, representing a Milky Way thin disc stellar population, we use the linearized Boltzmann equation to explicitly compute the response to a three-dimensional…
We use the Jaffe model as a global mass distribution for the Galaxy and determine the circular velocity $v_c$ and the Jaffe radius $r_j$ using the satellites of the Galaxy, estimates of the local escape velocity of stars, the constraints…
Due to our vantage point in the disk of the Galaxy, its 3D structure is not directly accessible. However, knowing the spatial distribution, e.g. of atomic and molecular hydrogen gas is of great importance for interpreting and modelling…
GAIA data will create a precise 3-dimensional map of the Galaxy, providing positional information, radial velocities, luminosity, temperature and chemical composition of a representative sample of stars. Here we present a new implementation…
Modified gravity theories can be used for the description of homogeneous and isotropic cosmological models through the corresponding field equations. These can be cast into systems of autonomous differential equations because of their sole…
I review the standard paradigm for understanding the formation and evolution of cosmic structure, based on the gravitational instability of dark matter, but many variations on this basic theme are viable. Despite the great progress that has…
We present accurate models of the gravitational potential produced by a radially exponential disk mass distribution. The models are produced by combining three separate Miyamoto-Nagai disks. Such models have been used previously to model…
We review our current understanding of the internal dynamical properties of the dwarf spheroidal galaxies surrounding the Milky Way. These are the most dark matter dominated galaxies, and as such may be considered ideal laboratories to test…
The spatial and temporal relationships between stellar age, kinematics, and chemistry are a fundamental tool for uncovering the physics driving galaxy formation and evolution. Observationally, these trends are derived using carefully…
Models of structure formation in the universe postulate that matter distributions observed today in galaxy catalogs arise, through a complex non-linear dynamics, by gravitational evolution from a very uniform initial state. Dark matter…
Recent work on the construction of spherical, Axisymmetric and triaxial dynamical models for elliptical galaxies is reviewed briefly, including their role in providing evidence for dark halos and central black holes. The different orbital…
The inner ~200 pc region of the Milky Way contains a nuclear stellar disc and a nuclear star cluster that are embedded in the larger Galactic bar. These stellar systems overlap spatially, which makes it challenging to separate stars that…
The disks of galaxies are primarily stellar systems, and fundamentally dynamical entities. Thus, to fully understand galactic disks, we must study their stellar kinematics as well as their morphologies. Observational techniques have now…
A framework is introduced for coupling the evolution of galactic magnetic fields sustained by the mean-field dynamo with the formation and evolution of galaxies in cold dark matter cosmology. Estimates of the steady-state strength of the…
Distribution functions (DFs) for dynamically warm thin stellar disks residing in arbitrary axisymmetric potentials are presented which approximately reproduce pre-described surface-density and velocity-dispersion profiles. The functional…
Considering galaxies as self - gravitating systems of many collisionless particles allows to use methods of statistical mechanics inferring the distribution function of these stellar systems. Actually, the long range nature of the…
Many dynamical models of the Milky Way halo require assumptions that the distribution function of a tracer population should be independent of time (i.e., a steady state distribution function) and that the underlying potential is spherical.…
We use dynamical models that include bulk rotation, velocity dispersion anisotropy and both stars and dark matter to explore the conditions that give rise to the early-type galaxy scaling relations referred to as the Fundamental Plane (FP)…