The CGCA (The Leonard E. Parker Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics) seminars are scheduled for Fridays at 1:00 pm in in the Kenwood Interdisciplinary Research Complex (KIRC) Room KEN 2175. A “brown bag lunch” group will assemble in KEN 4118 (fourth floor kitchenette located next to the elevators) at 12:00 NOON.

Effects of Radial Mixing on Galactic Disks
Carlos Vera-Ciro, University of Wisconsin-Madison

I will talk about secular evolution in disk galaxies, in particular we will discuss the effects of radial migration on the overall structure of galactic disks. Over the past few years this mechanism has been argued to be a natural, intrinsically driven, way of explaining observations such as the existence of a thick disk or the bias in the distribution of metals at different galactocentric distances in the Milky Way. In this talk I will show results that confront some of these interpretations, in particular in casting some questions about the role of radial migration in the assembly of the galactic thick disk.