Formation Models of the Galactic Bulge

Abstract

The Galactic bulge is now considered to be the inner three-dimensional part of the Milky Way's bar. It has a peanut shape and is characterized by cylindrical rotation. In N-body simulations, box/peanut bulges arise from disks through bar and buckling instabilities. Models of this kind explain much of the structure and kinematics of the Galactic bulge and, in principle, also its vertical metallicity gradient. Cosmological disk galaxy formation models with high resolution and improved feedback models are now able to generate late-type disk galaxies with disk-like or barred bulges. These bulges often contain an early collapse stellar population and a population driven by later disk instabilities. Due to the inside-out disk formation, these bulges can be predominantly old, similar to the Milky Way bulge.