Related papers: A Close Look at Star Formation around Active Galac…

We present a study of the star formation and central black hole accretion activity of the galaxies hosted in the two nearby (z$\sim$0.2) rich galaxy clusters Abell 983 and 1731. Aims: We are able to quantify both the obscured and unobscured…

We use a complete sample of galaxies drawn from the SDSS to study how structure, star formation and nuclear activity depend on local density and on stellar mass. Local density is estimated by counting galaxies above a fixed absolute…

We present initial results from a survey of nearby AGN using the near infrared adaptive optics integral field spectrograph SINFONI. These data enable us to probe the distribution and kinematics of the gas and stars at spatial resolutions as…

The supermassive black hole Sgr A* at the center of the Galaxy is surrounded by two misaligned disks of young, massive stars extending from ~0.04 to 0.4 pc. The stellar surface density increases as ~ r^-2 towards Sgr A* but is truncated…

We present spectra of the nuclear regions of 50 nearby (D = 1 - 92 Mpc, median = 20 Mpc) galaxies of morphological types E to Sm. The spectra, obtained with the Gemini Near-IR Spectrograph on the Gemini North telescope, cover a wavelength…

(Abridged) We present a study of the optical spectra of a sample of eight star-forming nuclear rings and the nuclei of their host galaxies. The spectra were obtained with the ISIS spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope and cover a…

We study the recent star formation histories of local galaxies by analyzing the scatter in their colours and spectral properties. We present evidence that the distribution of star formation histories changes qualitatively above a…

NGC 253 hosts the nearest nuclear starburst. Previous observations show a region rich in molecular gas, with dense clouds associated with recent star formation. We used ALMA to image the 350 GHz dust continuum and molecular line emission…

Observations have revealed prodigious amounts of star formation in starburst galaxies as traced by dust and molecular emission, even at large redshifts. Recent work shows that for both nearby spiral galaxies and distant starbursts, the…

We present the results of ASCA observations of a heterogenous sample of 15 spiral galaxies. 8 are LINERs or low-luminosity AGN (LLAGN), 5 are starburst galaxies and 2 are normal spiral galaxies. We find that in all cases the ASCA spectra…

We combine Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer observations tracing the molecular gas, millimeter continuum, and ionized gas emission in six low-redshift ($z \lesssim 0.06$) Palomar-Green…

We analyse two-dimensional near-IR K-band spectra from the inner 660x315 pc^2 of the Seyfert galaxy NGC7582 obtained with the Gemini GNIRS IFU. The nucleus harbors an unresolved source well reproduced by a blackbody of temperature T 1050 K,…

Using a distance-limited portion of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7, we have identified 28 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in nearby (d < 80 Mpc) low-mass, low-luminosity dwarf galaxies. The accreting objects at the galaxy…

We investigate the recent and current star formation activity of galaxies as function of distance from the cluster center in a sample of 521 SDSS clusters at z<0.1. We show that when the BCGs are excluded from the galaxy sample, there is no…

In a sample of local active galactic nuclei studied at a spatial resolution on the order of 10 pc we show that the interstellar medium traced by the molecular hydrogen v=1-0 S(1) 2.1um line forms a geometrically thick, clumpy disk. The…

We present a 5-8 micron analysis of the Spitzer-IRS spectra of 71 ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) with redshift z < 0.15, devoted to the study of the role of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and starbursts (SB) as the power source of…

Galactic superwinds occur in almost all infrared-luminous galaxies with star formation rates (SFRs) above 10 M_sun/yr, as shown by studies of the NaI D interstellar absorption line. We demonstrate that this result also applies to…

The Galactic Center is the closest galactic nucleus that can be studied with unprecedented angular resolution and sensitivity. We summarize recent basic observational results on Sagittarius A* and the conditions for star formation in the…

A stellar-mass black hole, embedded within the accretion disk of an active galactic nuclei (AGN), has the potential to accrete gas at a rate that can reach approximately $\sim 10^9$ times the Eddington limit. This study explores the…

We present new ~1" resolution data of the dense molecular gas in the central 50-100 pc of four nearby Seyfert galaxies. PdBI observations of HCN and, in 2 of the 4 sources, simultaneously HCO+ allow us to carefully constrain the dynamical…