The Emergence of the Thick Disk in a Cold Dark Matter Universe
Date
2004
Authors
Brook, Chris
Kawata, Daisuke
Gibson, Bradley K
Freeman, Kenneth
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Abstract
The disk galaxy simulated using our chemodynamic galaxy formation code, GCD+, is shown to have a thick-disk component. This is evidenced by the velocity dispersion versus age relation for solar neighborhood stars, which clearly shows an abrupt increase in velocity dispersion at a look-back time of approximately 8 Gyr, and is in excellent agreement with observation. These thick-disk stars are formed from gas that is accreted to the galaxy during a chaotic period of hierarchical clustering at high redshift. This formation scenario is shown to be consistent with observations of both the Milky Way and extragalactic thick disks.
Description
Keywords
Keywords: Galaxies: evolution; Galaxies: formation; Galaxy: disk
Citation
Collections
Source
Astrophysical Journal, The
Type
Journal article