Deciphering the ancient formation of the Galaxy is one of astrophysics’ greatest challenges. Nonetheless, observational advances from large-scale surveys such as Gaia and APOGEE have revealed several valuable stellar populations that have been used to tell a rich story of the Milky Way’s development. These include clues to when the Galaxy first acquired disc rotation (the spin-up), and to its interaction with the last significant merger roughly 8-11 billion years ago. But how reliable are these stellar populations as diagnostics of Galaxy evolution ? In this talk, I use the Auriga simulation suite to investigate this question, and find that it can be difficult to cleanly isolate these populations even under ideal circumstances. In particular, it may not be possible to determine the true timing of the disc spin-up. Nonetheless, there remain many valuable clues that may constrain the early evolution of the Milky Way, including for the timing and mass scale of the last significant merger.
Build up and survival of the disc, with insights from the Auriga simulation suite
Mardi 19 mai 2026
de
14:00 à
15:00
Conference room, building 17
