One of the fundamental astronomical discoveries just a century ago, was that the Milky Way is one of a vast number of "islands" within the cosmic sea. One of the great challenges of this century is to understand why they are neither isolated nor monolithic. The pollution of the gaseous, baryonic component by stellar nucleosynthesis is the unique evidence remaining over cosmic time to trace...
I will discuss the formation and evolution of the Milky Way thick and thin discs from the point of view of detailed Galactic chemical evolution models. To model the evolution of these two components and explain the observed bimodality in the [$\alpha$/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] plot, two different approaches can be adopted. In particular, (i) a sequential scenario called two-infall approach where the...
This presentation explores three methods for estimating the total star formation rate (SFR) of the Milky Way, two of which leverage Herschel far-infrared imaging observations. The first method derives SFRs by positioning Hi-GAL star-forming clumps on the luminosity–mass diagram, incorporating a variable gas-to-dust ratio that varies with Galactocentric distance. The second method, inspired by...
Central bars and spirals are known to strongly impact the evolution of their host galaxies, both in terms of dynamics and star formation. Their typically different pattern speeds cause them to regularly overlap, which induces fluctuations in bar parameters. I will show, using both numerical simulations and observations, how bar-spiral physical overlap produces both migration and star formation...
Accurately determining the properties of the Milky Way's Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) poses a complex challenge for astronomers due to significant contamination from the Galactic Spiral Arms, through which we observe. In position-velocity space, the CMZ is characterised by signals exhibiting high velocity dispersion, while the Spiral Arms show extensive spatial dispersion. To address this...
The star formation efficiency per free-fall time, defined as e_ff = (SFR/Mg) tff, where SFR is the star formation rate, Mg is the mass of a cloud, and tff is the cloud's free-fall time, is traditionally interpreted as the fraction of a cloud's mass that is converted into stars during the cloud's free-fall time. However, recent observational and numerical results suggest that molecular clouds...
