Was the Milky Way Bulge Formed From The Buckling Disk Instability, Hierarchical Collapse, Accretion of Clumps, or All of the Above?

Understand

The assembly of the Milky Way bulge is an old topic in astronomy, one now in a period of renewed and rapid development.

• The dominant scenario for bulge formation is that of the Milky Way as a nearly pure disk galaxy, with the inner disk having formed a bar and buckled.
• This can potentially explain virtually all bulge stars with [Fe/H] <~ -1.0, comprising 95% of the stellar population.
• The evidence is the incredible success in N-body models of this type in making meaningful predictions, such as the rotation curve and velocity dispersion measured from radial velocities, and the spatial morphologies of the peanut/X-shape and the long bar.