Related papers: Stellar Objects of Extragalactic Origin in the Gal…
(abridged) Sub-stellar mass objects have fundamentally different binary properties than stars implying that they cannot have the same formation history. They are rather unfinished stars having either been ejected by their siblings from…
We study how structural properties of globular clusters and dwarf galaxies are linked to their orbits in the Milky Way halo. From the inner to the outer halo, orbital energy increases and stellar-systems gradually move out of internal…
Interesting chemically peculiar field stars may reflect their stellar evolution history and their possible origin in a different environment from where they are found now, which is one of the most important research fields in Galactic…
Globular clusters are some of the oldest bound stellar structures observed in the Universe. They are ubiquitous in large galaxies and are believed to trace intense star formation events and the hierarchical build-up of structure.…
NGC3201 is a globular cluster (GC) which shows very peculiar kinematic characteristics including an extreme radial velocity and a highly retrograde orbit, strongly suggesting an extraGalactic origin. Our aims are to study NGC3201 in the…
Metal-poor stars play an import role in the understanding of Galaxy formation and evolution. Evidence of the early mergers that built up the Galaxy might remain in the distributions of abundances, kinematics, and orbital parameters of the…
We report preliminary results concerning the detailed chemical composition of metal poor stars belonging to close ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (hereafter UfDSphs). The abundances have been determined thanks to spectra obtained with X-Shooter,…
From X-ray observations of galaxy clusters one derives the mass of the intracluster medium along with its chemical composition. Optical/infrared observations are used to estimate the mass of the stellar components of galaxies, along with…
We present the three-dimensional orbital motions of metal-poor stars in conjunction with their metal abundances, for the purpose of getting insight into the formation process of the Galaxy. Our sample stars, which include metal-deficient…
Chemical abundances of 26 metal-poor dwarfs and giants are determined from high-resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio spectra obtained with Subaru/HDS. The sample is selected so that most of the objects have outer-halo kinematics.…
Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are the densest stellar systems in the Universe. They can be found at the center of all galaxy types, but tend to favor galaxies of intermediate stellar mass around 10$^9\,$M$_{\odot}$[1, 2]. Currently, two main…
We use detailed nucleosynthesis calculations and a realistic prescription for the environment of the first stars to explore the first episodes of chemical enrichment that occurred during the dark ages. Based on these calculations, we…
The most massive globular cluster in the Milky Way, omega Centauri, is thought to be the remaining core of a disrupted dwarf galaxy, as expected within the model of hierarchical merging. It contains several stellar populations having…
In the local Universe, globular clusters (GCs) with metallicities $[{\rm Fe}/{\rm H}]<-2.5$ are extremely rare. In this Letter, the close connection between GC formation and galaxy evolution is used to show that this GC metallicity `floor'…
Many of the scenarios proposed to explain the origin of chemically peculiar stars in globular clusters (GCs) require significant mass-loss ($\ge95\%$) to explain the observed fraction of such stars. In the GCs of the Fornax dwarf galaxy…
Understanding galaxy formation involves look-back and fossil-record studies of distant and nearby galaxies, respectively. Debris trails in our Galaxy's spheroidal halo of old stars provide evidence of "bottom-up" formation via tidal…
The study of the Milky Way stellar discs in the context of galaxy formation is discussed. In particular we explore the properties of the Milky Way disc using a new sample of about 550 dwarf stars for which we have recently obtained…
Globular clusters (GCs), once thought to be well approximated as simple stellar populations (i.e. all stars having the same age and chemical abundance), are now known to host a variety of anomalies, such as multiple discrete (or spreads in)…
We find a deficiency of binary stars moving on strongly retrograde Galactic orbits. No binary deficiencies are seen for U or W velocities, however. From theoretical analyses, we rule out preferential disruption of pre-existing binary stars…
Spectroscopic surveys of the Galaxy reveal that its disc stars exhibit a spread in $\mathrm{[\alpha/Fe]}$ at fixed $\mathrm{[Fe/H]}$, manifest at some locations as a bimodality. The origin of these diverse, and possibly distinct, stellar…