277 citations · 370 across the 13 of their papers we have counts for
10 papers · 1 filter
An Analytic Model for Stellar Metallicity Gradient Residuals in Cold, Phase-Mixed Galactic Disks
Shaunak Modak, Zoe Hackshaw, Keith Hawkins
The distribution of stellar metallicities over phase space in galactic disks is sculpted by both star formation and secular orbital transport processes. As a result, chemo-dynamica…
Interstellar Medium-Driven Orbital Transport -- I. Radial Heating and Migration
Shaunak Modak, Chris Hamilton, Eve C. Ostriker +1
Interstellar medium (ISM) structures gravitationally perturb stellar orbits in galactic disks, driving orbital heating and migration. However, studies of these transport processes…
Galactokinetics II: Spiral structure
Chris Hamilton, Shaunak Modak, Scott Tremaine
We present a unified theory of linear spiral structure in stellar disks. We begin by identifying the characteristic scales involved in the spiral structure problem and listing some…
Characterizing Density and Gravitational Potential Fluctuations of the Interstellar Medium
Shaunak Modak, Eve C. Ostriker, Chris Hamilton +1
Substructure in the interstellar medium (ISM) is crucial for establishing the correlation between star formation and feedback and has the capacity to significantly perturb stellar…
Why is the Galactic disk so cool?
Chris Hamilton, Shaunak Modak, Scott Tremaine
The bulk of old stars in the Galactic disk have migrated radially by up to several kpc in their lifetimes, yet the disk has remained relatively cool, i.e., the ratio of radial heat…
Galactokinetics
Chris Hamilton, Shaunak Modak, Scott Tremaine
Galactic disks lie at the heart of many of the most pressing astrophysical puzzles. There are sophisticated kinetic theories that describe some aspects of galaxy disk dynamics, but…
Eccentricity dynamics of wide binaries -- II. The effect of stellar encounters and constraints on formation channels
Chris Hamilton, Shaunak Modak
GAIA wide stellar binaries (separations AU) are observed to have a superthermal eccentricity distribution function (DF), well-fit by with $α…
Eccentricity dynamics of wide binaries -- I. The effect of Galactic tides
Shaunak Modak, Chris Hamilton
A major puzzle concerning the wide stellar binaries (semimajor axes \,AU) in the Solar neighborhood is the origin of their observed superthermal eccentricity distrib…
Cosmic-Ray Driven Galactic Winds from the Warm Interstellar Medium
Shaunak Modak, Eliot Quataert, Yan-Fei Jiang +1
We study the properties of cosmic-ray (CR) driven galactic winds from the warm interstellar medium using idealized spherically symmetric time-dependent simulations. The key ingredi…
Distinguishing Dark Matter Cusps from Cores using Globular Clusters
Shaunak Modak, Shany Danieli, Jenny E. Greene
Globular Clusters (GCs) provide valuable insight into the properties of their host galaxies' dark matter halos. Using N-body simulations incorporating semianalytic dynamical fricti…