Related papers: The present-day galaxy population in spiral galaxi…
This is a summary of my lectures during the 2011 IAC Winter School in Puerto de la Cruz. I give an introduction to the field of stellar populations in galaxies, and highlight some new results. Since the title of the Winter School was {\it…
Stellar populations contain the most important information about star clus- ter formation and evolution. Until several decades ago, star clusters were believed to be ideal laboratories for studies of simple stellar populations (SSPs).…
This review focuses on how galaxies and their globular cluster systems form. I first discuss the now fairly convincing evidence that some globular clusters form in galaxy starbursts/mergers. One way these observations are valuable is they…
Recent progress in our knowledge of stellar populations in local dwarf spheroidal galaxies is briefly discussed. A few results are summarized including wide field observations of stellar populations and their spatial variations, studies of…
The present-day globular cluster populations of galaxies reflect the cumulative effects of billions of years of galaxy evolution via such processes as mergers, tidal stripping, accretion, and in some cases the partial or even complete…
Around the turn of the last century, star clusters of all kinds were considered "simple" stellar populations. Over the past decade, this situation has changed dramatically. At the same time, star clusters are among the brightest stellar…
It is currently impossible to determine the abundances and ages of the stellar populations of distant, dense stellar systems star by star. Therefore, methods to analyze the composite light of stellar systems are required. I review the…
Our vision of galaxies has changed significantly since the era of large galaxy surveys like the Sloan, which gave us extensive statistics with millions of galaxies. The Hubble sequence classification described in Chapter 1 still remains…
Spiral galaxies offer a unique opportunity to study the role of star formation in galaxy evolution and to test various theoretical star formation schemes. I review some recent relevant work on the evolution of spiral galaxies. Detailed…
An introduction is given to projects investigating galaxy evolution quantitatively by spectroscopic observations of very distant galaxies that have weak apparent brightnesses and small sizes as it is feasible with 10m-class telescopes like…
Open and globular star clusters have served as benchmarks for the study of stellar evolution due to their supposed nature as simple stellar populations of the same age and metallicity. After a brief review of some of the pioneering work…
Stellar populations carry information about the formation of galaxies and their evolution up to the present epoch. A wealth of observational data are available nowadays, which are analysed with stellar population models in order to obtain…
A catalogue of superclusters of galaxies is used to investigate the influence of the supercluster environment on galaxy populations, considering galaxies brighter than M$_r<$-21+5$\log$ h. Empirical spectral synthesis techniques are applied…
What the future holds for the stellar populations of the Milky Way Galaxy may (optimistically) be predicted by study of their past histories, as written in the chemical abundance distributions, angular momentum distributions, velocity…
The history of the formation and evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy is found in the spatial distribution, kinematics, age and chemical abundance distributions of long-lived stars. From this fossil record one can in principle extract the star…
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 report preliminary results of the characterization of bulge and inner disk stellar populations for 8 nearby spiral galaxies using Gemini/GMOS. The long-slit spectra extend out to 1-2 disk scale lengths with S/N/Ang > 50. Two different…
We use detailed modeling of stellar populations of nearby galaxies to calculate population parameters. Our sample of galaxies includes most galaxies of the Local Group and several more distant giant galaxies. Available data are sufficient…
Star formation history shows a gradual decline since the last 8-9 Gyr (z=1). The bulk of present-day stellar mass and metal content was formed at redshifts lower than 2-3, which is consistent with a hierarchical scenario of galaxy…
The last decade has seen enormous progress in understanding the structure of the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies via the production of large-scale digital surveys of the sky like 2MASS and SDSS, as well as specialized, counterpart…