The Milky Way: Structure, Dynamics, Formation and Evolution

✍ Scribed by Francoise Combes, Françoise Combes, James Lequeux

• Publisher: EDP Sciences
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: French
• Leaves: 195
• Series: Current Natural Sciences
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Our knowledge of the Milky Way has been deeply renewed since a dozen years, following the results of the astrometric satellite HIPPARCOS, and those of large stellar surveys. Many concepts thought to be well established disappeared, to be replaced by others going towards a larger complexity: in particular, the discovery of radial migrations of stars has blurred the simple image that we had of the Galactic disk. There has been large progress in some domains, for instance the physics of the Galactic Center with its super-massive black hole; other problems remain unsolved, such as the nature of the dark matter existing like a halo around our Galaxy. This book reviews our present knowledge of the Milky Way, in the simplest and most didactic way as possible. Basic notions are always recalled, which make the book accessible to readers without any advanced formation in astronomy. This basic work will be very helpful to understand the results expected from GAIA, the new ESA astrometric satellite launched on December 19, 2013.

✦ Table of Contents

The Milky Way
Preface
Contents
Physical and astronomical constants
Chapter 1 - Introduction
1.1 Shape and dimensions of the Milky Way
1.2 Rotation and spiral structure
1.3 The Milky Way at all wavelengths
1.4 The role of the HIPPARCOS satellite
Chapter 2 - The solar neighborhood
2.1 The fundamental parameters of stars and the Hertzprung-Russell diagram
2.2 The local stellar disk
2.3 Kinematics and dynamics of the stars of the local disk
2.4 High-velocity stars
2.5 The interstellar matter near the Sun
Chapter 3 - Structure and components of the Milky Way
3.1 Dimensions and rotation of the Galaxy
3.2 Stellar populations in the Galaxy
3.3 The interstellar medium in the Galaxy
3.4 Radiation fields, magnetic field, cosmic particles and radio radiation
3.5 The spiral structure of the Galaxy
3.6 Dark matter in the Galaxy
Chapter 4 - The galactic center
4.1 Bar and bulge
4.2 The interstellar matter at the galactic center
4.3 The black hole
4.4 Conclusion
Chapter 5 - Galactic dynamics
5.1 Dynamics of the barred spiral structure
5.2 Cycle of the bar evolution, migrations, multiple waves
Chapter 6 - The chemical evolution of the Galaxy
6.1 The formation of the Galaxy
6.2 The production of elements in stars
6.3 Modeling the chemical evolution
6.4 The chemical evolution of the halo and the bulge
6.5 The chemical evolution of disks
Chapter 7 - Formation and evolutionof the Galaxy
7.1 The thin and thick disks
7.2 The formation of the bulge
7.3 The formation of the halo : cosmological or not?
Chapter 8 - The Galaxy among its companions
8.1 A spiral among the spirals – the Hubble classification of the Galaxy
8.2 The satellites : the Magellanic Clouds and dwarf elliptical galaxies
8.3 Capture of the Sagittarius dwarf, and many others: the tidal streams
8.4 Galactic wind, high velocity clouds, cosmic accretion
APPENDIX: List of the principal Milky Way satellites, sorted by increasing distance
Chapter 9 - The future
Appendix 1 - Stellar parameters
Appendix 2 - A few basic notions concerning the observations of the interstellar medium
Glossary
Bibliography
Index