Related papers: Constraints on Galaxy Structure and Evolution from…
Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is a benchmark for understanding disk galaxies. It is the only galaxy whose formation history can be studied using the full distribution of stars from white dwarfs to supergiants. The oldest components provide us…
The age and chemical composition of the stars in present-day galaxies carry important clues about their star formation processes. The latest generation of population synthesis models have allowed to derive age and stellar metallicity…
We investigate the environmental dependence of star formation and the morphology of galaxies in the local universe based on a volume-limited sample (0.030<z<0.065 and M_r<M_r^*+2) constructed from the data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.…
It is an obvious statement that all the galaxies we see today in and around our Local Group have been forming and evolving for a significant fraction of the age of the Universe. It is not a great leap of logic to further state that the…
Galaxies are not uniformly distributed in space. On large scales the Universe displays coherent structure, with galaxies residing in groups and clusters on scales of ~1-3 Mpc/h, which lie at the intersections of long filaments of galaxies…
The question of the nature of galaxy clustering and the possible homogeneity of galaxy distribution is one of the fundamental problem of cosmology. It is well established that galaxy structures are characterized, up to a certain scale, by…
I summarize current knowledge of galaxy formation with emphasis on the initial conditions provided by the Lambda CDM cosmology, integral constraints from cosmological quantities, and the demographics of high-redshift protogalaxies. Tables…
Globular clusters (GCs) are among the oldest and most luminous stellar systems in the Universe, offering unique insights into galaxy formation and evolution. While the physical processes behind their origin have long remained elusive, major…
Global star formation is the key to understanding galaxy disk formation. This in turn depends on gravitational instability of disks and continuing gas accretion as well as minor merging. A key component is feedback from supernovae. Primary…
We present decompositions of the rotation curves of distant spiral galaxies into contributions due to their bulges, disks, and putative dark haloes. In order to set constraints on the ambiguities of the decompositions we interpret the…
The properties of nearby galaxies that can be observed in great detail suggest that a better theory rather than cold dark matter (CDM) would describe in a better way a mechanism by which matter is more rapidly gathered into large-scale…
The formation of galaxies with warm dark matter is approximately adiabatic. The cold dark matter limit is singular and requires relaxation. In these lecture notes we develop, step-by-step, the physics of galaxies with warm dark matter, and…
The study of the chemical composition of Planetary Nebulae in external galaxies is of paramount importance in the fields of stellar evolution and of the chemical enrichment history of galaxies. In the last years a number of spectroscopic…
Cosmological simulations of structure formation predict that galaxies are dramatically modified by galaxy harassment during the assembly of galaxy clusters, losing a substantial fraction of their stellar mass which today must be in the form…
In this review I will describe a number of recent advances in extragalactic astronomy. First of all I will describe our current best estimates of the star formation history of the Universe. Then I will describe measurements of local…
Galaxy spectra are a rich source of kinematical information since the shapes of the absorption lines reflect the movement of stars along the line-of-sight. We present a technique to directly build a dynamical model for a galaxy by fitting…
Low-mass cluster galaxies are the most common galaxy type in the universe and are at a cornerstone of our understanding of galaxy formation, cluster luminosity functions, dark matter and the formation of large scale structure. I describe in…
Nearby galaxies are the end result of their cosmological evolution, which is predicted to be influenced by the growth of their host dark matter halos. This co-evolution potentially leaves signatures in present-day observed galaxy…
Their ubiquity and extreme densities make star clusters probes of prime importance of galaxy evolution. Old globular clusters keep imprints of the physical conditions of their assembly in the early Universe, and younger stellar objects,…
I will review some results of observational cosmology which critically cast doubt upon the foundations of the standard cosmology: 1) The redshifts of the galaxies are due to the expansion of the Universe; 2) The cosmic microwave background…