Making action-angle disc models for Gaia

Abstract

A brief review of recent work. I describe dynamical modelling of the Milky Way using action-angle coordinates. I explain what action-angle coordinates are, and what progress has been made in the past few years to ensuring they can be used in reasonably realistic Galactic potentials. I then describe recent modelling efforts, and progress they have made in constraining the potential of the Milky Way and the local dark matter density.