Related papers: A high stellar velocity dispersion for a compact m…
Most massive galaxies are thought to have formed their dense stellar cores at early cosmic epochs. However, cores in their formation phase have not yet been observed. Previous studies have found galaxies with high gas velocity dispersions…
High spatial and spectral resolution observations of star formation and kinematics in early galaxies have shown that two-thirds are massive rotating disk galaxies with the remainder being less massive non-rotating objects. The line of sight…
High-redshift galaxies are expected to be more turbulent than local galaxies because of their smaller size and higher star formation and thus stronger feedback from star formation, frequent mergers events, and gravitational instabilities.…
We measure the central stellar velocity dispersion function for quiescent galaxies in a set of nine northern clusters in the redshift range $0.18 < z < 0.29$ and with strong lensing arcs in Hubble Space Telescope images. The velocity…
Typical stars in the Milky Way galaxy have velocities of hundreds of kilometres per second and experience gravitational accelerations of $\sim 10^{-10}$ m s$^{-2}$, resulting in velocity changes of a few centimetres per second over a…
High-velocity galactic outflows, driven by intense bursts of star formation and black hole accretion, are invoked by current theories of galaxy formation to terminate star formation in the most massive galaxies and to deposit heavy elements…
Radial velocity dispersion in spheroidal and elliptical galaxies, as a function of radial distance from the center of the galaxy, has been derived from Cosmological Special Relativity. For velocity dispersions in the outer regions of…
Stellar archeology shows that massive elliptical galaxies today formed rapidly about ten billion years ago with star formation rates above several hundreds solar masses per year (M_sun/yr). Their progenitors are likely the…
The redshift distribution of galactic-scale lensing systems provides a laboratory to probe the velocity dispersion function (VDF) of early-type galaxies (ETGs) and measure the evolution of early-type galaxies at redshift z ~ 1. Through the…
0957+561 is the first gravitational lens system to be discovered and first for which a time delay was measured. Because the system is unusually rich in observables such as image positions, fluxes, VLBI structure, and polarization it has…
We have performed a large observing campaign of intermediate-redshift disk galaxies including spectroscopy with the FORS instruments of the VLT and imaging with the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the HST. Our data set comprises 113…
We present a study of galaxy sizes in the local Universe as a function of galaxy environment, comparing clusters and the general field. Galaxies with radii and masses comparable to high-z massive and compact galaxies represent 4.4% of all…
Massive present-day early-type (elliptical and lenticular) galaxies probably gained the bulk of their stellar mass and heavy elements through intense, dust-enshrouded starbursts - that is, increased rates of star formation - in the most…
Several conclusions have been reached over the last few years concerning high-redshift galaxies: (1) The excess of faint blue galaxies is due to dwarf galaxies. (2) Star formation peaks at redshifts z ~1-2. (3) It appears to occur piecemeal…
[abridged] Massive, passively evolving galaxies at redshifts z>1 exhibit on the average physical sizes smaller by factors ~3 than local early type galaxies (ETGs) endowed with the same stellar mass. Small sizes are in fact expected on…
We characterize the kinematics, morphology, stellar populations and star formation histories of a sample of massive compact galaxies in the nearby Universe, which might provide a closer look to the nature of their high redshift (z > 1.0)…
We analyse spatially-resolved deep optical spectroscopy of Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) located in 32 massive clusters with redshifts of 0.05 $\leq z \leq$ 0.30, to investigate their velocity dispersion profiles. We compare these…
Dedicated photometric and spectroscopic surveys have provided unambiguous evidence for a strong stellar mass-size evolution of galaxies within the last 10 Gyr. The likely progenitors of today's most massive galaxies are remarkably small,…
We have carried out a systematic, homogeneous comparison of optical and near-infrared dispersions. Our magnitude-limited sample of early-type galaxies in the Fornax cluster comprises 11 elliptical and 11 lenticular galaxies more luminous…
The evolution of masses and sizes of passive (early-type) galaxies with redshift provides ideal constraints to galaxy formation models. These parameters can in principle be obtained for large galaxy samples from multi-band photometry alone.…