Related papers: HOLMES and little monsters
Disturbed spiral galaxies with high rates of star formation pervaded clusters of galaxies just a few billion years ago, but nearby clusters exclude spirals in favor of ellipticals. ``Galaxy harassment" (frequent high speed galaxy…
A new view on our Galaxy has recently emerged, with large consequences on its formation scenarios. Not only new dwarf satellites have been detected, still orbiting and tidally disrupting, but also a multitude of stellar streams or tidal…
Massive black holes (MBHs) with a mass below ~ 1e7 Msun are likely to reside at the centre of dense stellar nuclei shaped by 2-body relaxation, close interactions with the MBH and direct collisions. In this contribution, we stress the role…
Mergers and the spin of the dark matter halo are factors traditionally believed to determine the morphology of galaxies within a $\Lambda$CDM cosmology. We study this hypothesis by considering approximately 18,000 central galaxies at $z=0$…
Galaxies cover a wide range of masses and star formation histories. In this review, I summarize some of the evolutionary key features of common galaxy types. At the high-mass end, very rapid, efficient early star formation is observed,…
We report the identification of elongated (triaxial or prolate) galaxies in cosmological simulations at $z\simeq2$. These are preferentially low-mass galaxies ($M_s \le 10^{9.5} \ M_\odot$), residing in dark-matter (DM) haloes with strongly…
(Abridged) The building blocks of galaxies are star clusters. These form with low-star formation efficiencies and, consequently, loose a large part of their stars that expand outwards once the residual gas is expelled by the action of the…
Properties of galaxies vary systematically with the mass of their parent dark matter halos. This basic galaxy - halo connection shows a fair amount of scatter whose origin is not fully understood. Here, we study how differences in the halo…
The massive galaxies in the young universe, ten billion years ago, formed stars at surprising intensities. Although this is commonly attributed to violent mergers, the properties of many of these galaxies are incompatible with such events,…
Disks of gas accreting onto supermassive black holes, powering active galactic nuclei (AGN), can capture stars from nuclear star clusters or form stars in situ via gravitational instability. The density and thermal conditions of these disks…
Star clusters are observed to form in a highly compact state and with low star-formation efficiencies, and only 10 per cent of all clusters appear to survive to middle- and old-dynamical age. If the residual gas is expelled on a dynamical…
We present an overview of some of the issues surrounding current models of galaxy formation, highlighting recent insights obtained from cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. Detailed examination of gas accretion processes show a hot mode…
Despite their paucity, massive hot stars are real cosmic engines of fundamental importance in shaping our Universe, from its very early stages up to its current appearance. Understanding the physics of massive stars is then a key issue for…
This contribution is focused on the role of cool giants in symbiotic binaries. Especially, we pay attention to their mass-loss rates and the wind mass-transfer onto their compact accretors.
Supermassive black holes inhabit galactic nuclei, and their presence influences in crucial ways the evolution of the stellar distribution. The low-density cores observed in bright galaxies are probably a result of black hole infall, while…
The Magellanic Clouds (MCs) offer an outstanding variety of young stellar associations, in which large samples of low-mass stars (with masses less than 1 solar mass) currently in the act of formation can be resolved and explored…
Stellar halos may hold some of the best preserved fossils of the formation history of galaxies. They are a natural product of the merging processes that probably take place during the assembly of a galaxy, and hence may well be the most…
The first stars are assumed to be predominantly massive. Although, due to the low initial abundances of heavy elements the line-driven stellar winds are supposed to be inefficient in the first stars, these stars may loose a significant…
Open clusters (OC) of 1-3 Gyr age contain intermediate-to-low-mass stars in evolutionary phases of multiple relevance to understanding Li evolution. Stars leaving the main sequence (MS) from the hot side of the Lithium dip (LD) at a fixed…
Neutral-atomic and molecular outflows are a common occurrence in galaxies, near and far. They operate over the full extent of their galaxy hosts, from the innermost regions of galactic nuclei to the outermost reaches of galaxy halos. They…