Related papers: The Local Group: Inventory and History
Star clusters are fundamental building blocks of galaxies. Their formation is related to the density and pressure in progenitor molecular clouds and their environmental conditions. To understand better the dynamical processes driving star…
The dust-forming population of AGB stars and their input to the interstellar dust budget of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) are studied with evolutionary dust models with the main goals (1) to investigate how the amount and composition of…
We have constructed a family of simple models for spiral galaxy evolution to allow us to investigate observational trends in star formation history with galaxy parameters. The models are used to generate broad band colours from which ages…
This thesis is aimed at clarifying one of the least studied phases of stellar evolution: the asymptotic giant branch (AGB). Recent results obtained for Galactic globular clusters (GCs) suggest that the AGB stage may contain crucial…
An unresolved question in galaxy evolution is whether the star formation histories of low mass systems are preferentially dominated by starbursts or modes that are more quiescent and continuous. Here, we quantify the prevalence of global…
Dwarf galaxies in the Local Group provide a unique astrophysical laboratory. Despite their proximity some of these systems still lack a reliable distance determination as well as studies of their stellar content and star formation history.…
The dwarf galaxies of the Local Group can be separated in three morphological groups: irregular, elliptical and spheroidal. As in the large galaxy clusters, there seems to be a morphology-position relationship: irregular galaxies are…
We introduce a framework for simultaneously investigating the structure and luminosity evolution of early-type gravitational lens galaxies. The method is based on the fundamental plane, which we interpret using the aperture mass-radius…
We study the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) evolution of stars with masses between $1~M_{\odot} - 8.5~M_{\odot}$. We focus on stars with a solar chemical composition, which allows us to interpret evolved stars in the Galaxy. We present a…
We study the resolved stellar populations of dwarf galaxies in the nearby Centaurus A/M83 group of galaxies. Our goal is to characterize their evolutionary history and to investigate eventual similarities or differences with the dwarf…
The M33 galaxy is a nearby, relatively metal-poor, late-type spiral. Its proximity and almost face-on inclination means that it projects over a large area on the sky, making it an ideal candidate for wide-field CCD mosaic imaging.…
We consider a small sample of oxygen-rich, asymptotic giant branch stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, observed by the Spitzer Space Telescope, exhibiting a peculiar spectral energy distribution, which can be hardly explained by the common…
The smallest dwarf galaxies are the most straight forward objects in which to study star formation processes on a galactic scale. They are typically single cell star forming entities, and as small potentials in orbit around a much larger…
We review the properties of globular clusters which make them useful for studying the Galactic halo, Galactic chemical evolution, and the early stages of the formation of the Milky Way. We review the evidence that GCs have a chemical…
We aim to investigate mass loss and luminosity in a large sample of evolved stars in several Local Group galaxies with a variety of metalliticies and star-formation histories: the Small and Large Magellanic Cloud, and the Fornax, Carina,…
We present uniformly measured star formation histories (SFHs) of 40 Local Group dwarf galaxies based on color-magnitude diagram (CMD) analysis from archival Hubble Space Telescope imaging. We demonstrate that accurate SFHs can be recovered…
Given the many recent advances in our understanding of the star formation history (SFH) of the Local Group and other nearby galaxies, and in the evolution of star formation with redshift, we present a new comparison of the comoving space…
The Local Group is a small galaxy cluster with the membership of 62 nearby galaxies including the Milky Way and M31. Although the Local Group has yet to be virialized, it interacts with the surrounding matter as one gravitationally bound…
Analytical models of chemical evolution, including inflow and outflow of gas, are important tools to study how the metal content in galaxies evolves as a function of time. In this work, we present new analytical solutions for the evolution…
Over the last few years, rapid progress has been made in distance measurements for nearby galaxies based on the magnitude of the tip of red giant branch stars. Current CCD surveys with HST and large ground- based telescopes bring…