Mapping a stellar disk into a boxy bulge: The outside-in part of the Milky Way bulge formation

By means of idealized, dissipationless N-body simulations that follow the formation and subsequent buckling of a stellar bar, we study the characteristics of boxy/peanut-shaped bulges and compare them with the properties of the stellar populations in the Milky Way (MW) bulge. The main results of our modeling, valid for the general family of boxy/peanut shaped bulges, are the following: (i) Because of the spatial redistribution in the disk initiated at the epoch of bar formation, stars from the innermost regions to the outer Lindblad resonance (OLR) of the stellar bar are mapped into a boxy bulge. (ii) The contribution of stars to the local bulge density depends on their birth radius: stars born in the innermost disk tend to dominate the innermost regions of the boxy bulge, while stars originating closer to the OLR are preferably found in the outer regions of the boxy/peanut structure. (iii) Stellar birth radii are imprinted in the bulge kinematics: the larger the birth radii of stars ending up in the bulge, the greater their rotational support and the higher their line-of-sight velocity dispersions (but note that this last trend depends on the bar viewing angle). (iv) The higher the classical bulge-over-disk ratio, the larger its fractional contribution of stars at large vertical distance from the galaxy midplane. Comparing these results with the properties of the stellar populations of the MW bulge recently revealed by the ARGOS survey, we conclude that (I) the two most metal-rich populations of the MW bulge, labeled A and B in the ARGOS survey, originate in the disk, with the population of A having formed on average closer to the Galaxy center than the population of component B; (II) a massive (B/D similar to 0.25) classical spheroid can be excluded for the MW, thus confirming previous findings that the MW bulge is composed of populations that mostly have a disk origin. On the basis of their chemical and kinematic characteristics, the results of our modeling suggest that the populations A, B, and C, as defined by the ARGOS survey, can be associated, respectively, with the inner thin disk, to the young thick and to the old thick disk, following the nomenclature that we recently suggested for stars in the solar neighborhood.