Related papers: Dry Mergers: A Crucial Test for Galaxy Formation
We report on the serendipitous discovery of a star-forming galaxy at redshift z=0.116 with morphological features that indicate an ongoing merger. This object exhibits two clearly separated components with significantly different colors,…
We study the dark matter (DM) assembly in the central regions of massive early-type galaxies up to $z\sim 0.65$. We use a sample of $\sim 3800$ massive ($\log M_{\rm \star}/M_{\rm \odot} > 11.2$) galaxies with photometry and structural…
We present a numerical evidence supporting the scenario that the peculiar alignments of the galaxy stellar spins with the major principal axes of the local tidal tensors are produced during the quiescent evolution period when the galaxies…
We present an analysis of the spatial distribution of star formation in a sample of 60 visually identified galaxy merger candidates at z>1. Our sample, drawn from the 3D-HST survey, is flux-limited and was selected to have high star…
Using a mass-selected ($M_{\star} \ge 10^{11} M_{\odot}$) sample of 198 galaxies at 0 < z < 3.0 with HST/NICMOS $H_{160}$-band images from the COSMOS survey, we find evidence for the evolution of the pair fraction above z ~ 2, an epoch in…
Both observations and simulations show that major tidal interactions or mergers between gas-rich galaxies can lead to intense bursts of starformation. Yet, the average enhancement in star formation rate (SFR) in major mergers and the…
It has been suggested that merging plays an important role in the formation and the evolution of elliptical galaxies(EGs). In order to understand the past merging history of EGs, we studied the optical-NIR color gradients of 204 EGs. The…
We have explored the buildup of the local mass-size relation of elliptical galaxies using two visually classified samples. At low redshift we compiled a subsample of 2,656 elliptical galaxies from SDSS, whereas at higher redshift (up to…
We present a simple, empirically motivated model that simultaneously predicts the evolution of the mean size and the comoving mass density of massive early-type galaxies from z=2 to the present. First we demonstrate that some size evolution…
Starburst galaxies are often found to be the result of galaxy mergers. As a result, galaxy mergers are often believed to lie above the galaxy main sequence: the tight correlation between stellar mass and star formation rate. Here, we aim to…
We present a study of tidal debris associated with 126 nearby red galaxies selected from the MUSYC and NDWFS surveys. In the full sample 67 galaxies (53%) show morphological signatures of tidal interactions, consisting of broad fans of…
The slow evolution of the M/L ratios, colors, and line strengths of cluster early-type galaxies to z=1 suggests that their stars were formed at very high redshift. At the same time, morphological studies of distant clusters indicate…
Recent observations of galaxy mergers inside galaxy cluster environments report high star formation rates in the ejected tidal tails, which point towards currently developing tidal dwarf galaxies. We test whether these dwarf objects could…
Understanding the formation history of massive galaxies is one of most popular and longstanding problems in astronomy, with observations and theory addressing how and when these systems assembled. Since the most massive galaxies in today's…
Cosmic voids, the largest under-dense structures in the Universe, are crucial for exploring galaxy evolution. These vast, sparsely populated regions are home to void galaxies -- predominantly gas-rich, star-forming, and blue -- that evolve…
Massive galaxies, such as nearby ellipticals, have relatively low number densities, yet they host the majority of the stellar mass in the universe. Understanding their origin is a central problem of galaxy formation. Age dating of stellar…
Gas-rich galaxy mergers are more easily identified by their disturbed morphologies than mergers with less gas. Because the typical gas fraction of galaxy mergers is expected to increase with redshift, the under-counting of low gas-fraction…
We derive the number of dynamically close companions per galaxy ($N_c$) and their total luminosity ($L_c$) for galaxies in the Millennium Galaxy Catalogue: $N_c$ is similar to the fraction of galaxies in close pairs and is directly related…
Galaxies with Milky Way-like stellar masses have a wide range of bulge and black hole masses; in turn, these correlate with other properties such as star formation history. While many processes may drive bulge formation, major and minor…
We use the HiZELS narrow-band H-alpha survey in combination with CANDELS, UKIDSS and WIRDS near-infrared imaging, to investigate the morphologies, merger rates and sizes of a sample of H-alpha emitting galaxies in the redshift range z=0.40…