The Sagittarius Impact on Light and Dark Structure in the Milky Way
  It is increasingly apparent that common merger events play a large role in
the evolution of disk galaxies at all cosmic times, from the wet accretion of
gas-filled dwarf galaxies during the era of peak star formation, to the
collisions between large, dynamically-advanced spiral galaxies and their dry
companion satellites, a type of interaction that continues to influence disk
structure into the present day. We also live in a large spiral galaxy currently
undergoing a series of impacts from an infalling, disrupting dwarf galaxy. As
next-generation astrometry proposes to place our understanding of the Milky Way
spiral structure on a much firmer footing, we analyze high-resolution numerical
models of this disk-satellite interaction in order to assess the dynamical
response of our home Galaxy to the Sagittarius dwarf impact, and possible
implications for experiments hoping to directly detect dark matter passing
through the Earth.
