Yale Astronomy Virtual Colloquium - Kate Daniel

Event time: 
Thursday, April 21, 2022 - 2:30pm
Speaker: 
Kate Daniel
Speaker Institution: 
Bryn Mawr College
Talk Title: 
Resonant Evolution: Reconstructing the dynamical history of the Milky Way
Event description: 

Dynamical resonances are essential to the evolution of disk galaxies. These resonances arise in the presence of massive structures, like Giant Molecular Clouds, spiral patterns and satellites, acting to reshape a galaxy as they diffuse, shepherd and rearrange stellar populations.  Until recently, many of the signatures that would reveal the past dynamical evolution of the Milky Way have been obscured, limited by observational uncertainties and simulation resolution.  We are now entering a new era, rich with high precision chrono-chemodynamic (kinematic, chemical, and age) data. Current and upcoming observatories and surveys are revealing complex post-resonant structures in this multidimensional space and opening exciting opportunities to reconstruct the dynamical history of the Milky Way.  Many of these phenomena are reproduced in specialized and high-resolution simulations, where additional trends arise when exploring galaxies that occupy a range of parameter space.  There is an ongoing need to further develop the theoretical framework necessary to interpret this flood of high precision data.  In this talk, I will demystify the physics that governs various resonant phenomena in disk galaxies.  I will then use radial migration as a case study to demonstrate how theory informs the interpretation of observed and simulated data. Finally, I will describe current and future transformative science that is emerging from this interdisciplinary approach.