相关论文: Spiral Galaxies and Tracers of Mass Accretion
The formation of thick stellar disks in spiral galaxies is studied. Simulations of gas-rich young galaxies show formation of internal clumps by gravitational instabilities, clump coalescence into a bulge, and disk thickening by strong…
In the current galaxy formation scenarios, two physical phenomena are invoked to build disk galaxies: hierarchical mergers and more quiescent external gas accretion, coming from intergalactic filaments. Although both are thought to play a…
I briefly review the growing evidence that thick stellar disks surround most edge-on disk galaxies. Recent studies show that these extragalactic thick disks have old ages, low metallicities, long scale lengths, and moderately flattened…
Gravitational interactions and mergers are shaping and reshaping galaxies throughout the observable universe. While observations of interacting galaxies at low redshifts yield detailed information about the processes at work, observations…
The star formation history of a galaxy, explicitely here our Milky Way Galaxy, where the most detailed information is attainable, is the convolution of two functions. One function describes the rate of formation of the stars which are today…
We use numerical simulations to examine the structure of merger remnants resulting from collisions of gas-rich spiral galaxies. When the gas fraction of the progenitors is small, the remnants structurally and kinematically resemble…
Galaxy disks are characterised by star formation histories that vary systematically along the Hubble sequence. We study global star formation, incorporating supernova feedback, gas accretion and enriched outflows in disks modelled by a…
Spirals in galaxies have long been thought to be caused by gravitational instability in the stellar component of the disk, but discerning the precise mechanism had proved elusive. Tidal interactions, and perhaps bars, may provoke some…
Observations reveal that mature spiral galaxies consist of stars, gases and plasma approximately distributed in a thin disk of circular shape, usually with a central bulge. The rotation velocities quickly increase from the galactic center…
Large-scale warps in the outer parts of spiral galaxy discs have been observed for almost forty years, but their origin remains obscure. We review the dynamics of warped galaxy discs. We identify several mechanisms that could excite warps,…
The presence of radial truncations in stellar disks is reviewed. There is ample evidence that many disk galaxies have relatively shaprt truncations in their disks. These often are symmetric and independent of the wavelength band of the…
Thick disks appear to be common in external large spiral galaxies and our own Milky Way also hosts one. The existence of a thick disk is possibly directly linked to the formation history of the host galaxy and if its properties is known it…
Using the deepest and the most complete set of observations of distant galaxies, we investigate how extended disks could have formed. Observations include spatially-resolved kinematics, detailed morphologies and photometry from UV to…
Gas disks of spiral galaxies can be described as clumpy accretion disks without a coupling of viscosity to the actual thermal state of the gas. The model description of a turbulent disk consisting of emerging and spreading clumps (Vollmer &…
The physical phenomena contributing to the galaxy growth can be tested all the way to z= 1. Galaxy mass, extinction, star formation and gas metal abundance can be measured in a robust way, as well as the distribution of the galaxy…
I review the results of recent cosmological simulations of galaxy formation that highlight the importance of satellite accretion in the formation of galactic disks. Tidal debris of disrupted satellites may contribute to the disk component…
The Galactic disk retains a vast amount of information about how it came to be, and how it evolved over cosmic time. However, we know very little about the secular processes associated with disk evolution. One major uncertainty is the…
Building galaxy merger trees from a state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamics simulation, Horizon-AGN, we perform a statistical study of how mergers and smooth accretion drive galaxy morphologic properties above $z > 1$. More…
I discuss how the chemical abundance distributions, kinematics and age distributions of stars in the thin and thick disks of the Galaxy can be used to decipher the merger history of the Milky Way, a typical large galaxy. The observational…
The rotation curves of disk galaxies exhibit a number of striking regularities. The amplitude of the rotation is correlated with luminosity (Tully-Fisher), the shape of the rotation curve is well predicted by the luminous mass distribution,…