The Milky Way in the Context of Barred Galaxies: Dark Matter and (Chemo-) Dynamics

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Galaxies are basic building blocks of the Universe. Their formation and evolution, and the interplay between stellar and dark matter are among the most important problems in astrophysics. Here we propose a collaborative project to determine the distribution of baryonic and dark matter in the Milky Way Galaxy and in similar mass barred galaxies in the CALIFA survey. We will also investigate the gas dynamics and the (chemo-) dynamics of their stellar bars and disks, using state-of-the-art dynamical and gas-dynamical modelling. The unprecedented incoming data for the Milky Way (MW) from the Gaia satellite and from parallel survey observations are making the MW enormously important as a template for galaxy formation studies. From these data we will accurately determine its central dark matter cusp-core, and model the distribution of stellar orbits for stars of different chemical composition ('chemo-dynamics'). The CALIFA data provide powerful two-dimensional velocity information that will allow us to determine the stellar mass in the bars and disks of barred galaxies, and thus infer their dark matter distribution. Using the CALIFA abundance data we will obtain orbit distributions of stellar populations similar to the Milky Way. The evolution of the dark matter profile and the chemo-dynamical growth of galaxies are an important part of the formation history of galaxies, where we will be able to place the MW in the context of its siblings.