Radial migration in N-body simulations

Rok Roškar (Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Zürich)

Recent theoretical work suggests that it may be common for stars
in the disks of spiral galaxies to migrate radially across significant
distances in the disk. Such migrations are a result of spiral
corotation resonance scattering and move the guiding centers of
the stars while preserving the circularities of their orbits.
Migration can therefore efficiently mix stars in all parts of
the disk. Therefore, if migration does indeed occur in real disks,
it requires that disks be thought of as fully inter-connected
structures with a common history rather then a set of autonomous
regions. In the extreme, radial migration allows the evolution
of the innermost regions to contribute significantly to the
outermost parts of the disk. I will discuss the results from
idealized N-body/SPH simulations of disk formation and evolution,
emphasizing the observational consequences of stellar migration
on the solar neighborhood, the thick and thin disks of the Galaxy,
as well as external disks.