Related papers: First Description of Discrete Stars Composing the …
It is now generally believed that galaxies were built up through gravitational amplification of primordial fluctuations and the subsequent merging of smaller precursor structures. The stars of the structures that assembled to form the Milky…
We use a distribution function analysis to estimate the mass of the Milky Way out to 100 kpc using a large sample of halo stars. These stars are compiled from the literature, and the vast majority (~98%) have 6D phase-space information. We…
In a cosmological setting, the disc of a galaxy is expected to continuously experience gravitational torques and perturbations from a variety of sources, which can cause the disc to wobble, flare and warp. Specifically, the study of…
Whether among the myriad tiny proto-galaxies there exists a population with similarities to present day galaxies is an open question. We show, using BlueTides, the first hydrodynamic simulation large enough to resolve the relevant scales,…
We use a series of high-resolution simulations of a `Milky-Way' halo coupled to semi-analytic methods to study the formation of our own Galaxy and of its stellar halo. The physical properties of our model Milky Way, as well as the age and…
We present a detailed analysis of the Galaxy structure using an unWISE wide-field image at $3.4\mu$m. We perform a 3D photometric decomposition of the Milky Way taking into account i) the projection of the Galaxy on the celestial sphere and…
The Milky Way is a barred galaxy whose central bulge has a box/peanut shape and consists of multiple stellar populations with different orbit distributions. This review describes dynamical and chemo-dynamical equilibrium models for the…
Investigations of the origin and evolution of the Milky Way disk have long relied on chemical and kinematic identification of its components to reconstruct our Galactic past. Difficulties in determining precise stellar ages have restricted…
In a framework where galaxies form hierarchically, extended stellar haloes are predicted to be an ubiquitous feature around Milky Way-like galaxies and to consist mainly of the shredded stellar component of smaller galactic systems. The…
The "plane of satellites problem" describes the arrangement of the Milky Way's 11 brightest satellite galaxies in a remarkably thin plane, possibly supported by rotation. This is in apparent contradiction to the standard cosmological model,…
The earliest phases of the chemical evolution of our Galaxy are analysed in the light of the recent VLT results (concerning abundance patterns in the most metal-poor stars of the Galactic halo) and of stellar nucleosynthesis calculations.…
The hierarchical theory of galaxy formation rests on the idea that smaller galactic structures merge to form the galaxies that we see today. The past decade has provided remarkable observational support for this scenario, driven in part by…
Much of our effort in understanding the long-term evolution and morphology of the Milky Way and other galaxies has focused on the equilibrium of its luminous disk. However, the interplay between all components, seen and unseen, is a major…
Using our rich observations within the Milky Way to better understand galaxy evolution requires understanding what the Milky Way looks like "as a galaxy" -- that is, its "true" shape and abundance profiles (unskewed by observational…
In this contribution I shall focus on the structure of the Galactic thin disk. The evolution of the thin disk and its chemical properties have been discussed in detail by T. Bensby's contribution in conjunction with the properties of the…
Recent observations of hydrogen absorption that occurred when the first stars turned on may give insights into the nature of dark matter.
The investigation of the metal-poor tail in the Galactic bulge provides unique information on the early Milky Way assembly and evolution. A chemo-dynamical analysis of 17 very metal-poor stars (VMP, [Fe/H] $<-2.0$) selected from the…
The Milky Way's stellar disk exhibits a bimodality in the [Fe/H] vs. [$\alpha$/Fe] plane, showing a distinct high-$\alpha$ and low-$\alpha$ sequence whose origin is still under debate. We examine the [Fe/H]-[$\alpha$/Fe] abundance plane in…
Stellar abundance pattern of neutron-capture elements such as barium is used as a powerful tool to infer how star formation proceeded in dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies. It is found that the abundance correlation of barium with iron in…
The formation of the first stars and the subsequent population of X-ray binaries represents a fundamental transition in the state of the Universe as it evolves from near homogeneity to being abundant in collapsed structures such as…