Related papers: Modelling the formation of today's massive ellipti…
We discuss the mechanism of cluster formation in hierarchically collapsing molecular clouds. Recent evidence, both observational and numerical, suggests that molecular clouds (MCs) may be undergoing global, hierarchical gravitational…
The tightness of the observed colour-magnitude and Mg$_{2}$- velocity dispersion relations for elliptical galaxies has often been cited as an argument against a picture in which ellipticals form by the merging of spiral disks. A common view…
High-resolution numerical simulations of galaxy mergers are analysed. The global structure and isophotal shapes of the merger remnants are in good agreement with the observations. Whereas equal-mass mergers lead to anisotropic, boxy…
Compact groups of galaxies have posed a number of challenging questions. Intensive observational and theoretical studies are now providing answers to many of these, and at the same time, are revealing unexpected new clues about the nature…
Recent progress in studies of globular clusters has shown that they are not simple stellar populations, being rather made of multiple generations. Evidence stems both from photometry and spectroscopy. A new paradigm is then arising for the…
In this paper we study a key phase in the formation of massive galaxies: the transition of star forming galaxies into massive (M_stars~10^11 Msun), compact (r_e~1 kpc) quiescent galaxies, which takes place from z~3 to z~1.5. We use HST…
We study the formation and evolution of small groups of galaxies using new Monte Carlo simulations. These are directly based on the random walk approach to the statistics of condensations collapsing by gravitational instability, and the…
Elliptical galaxies are believed to consist of a single population of old stars formed together at an early epoch in the Universe, yet recent analyses of galaxy spectra seem to indicate the presence of significant younger populations of…
Although there are many more stellar population studies of elliptical and lenticular galaxies, studies of spiral galaxies are catching up, due to higher signal to noise data on one hand, and better analysis methods on the other. Here I…
We explore the effects of mergers on the evolution of massive early-type galaxies by modeling the evolution of their stellar populations in a hierarchical context. We investigate how a realistic red sequence population set up by z~1 evolves…
Evidence for cosmic down-sizing has been growing over the last decade. It is now clear that the major star-forming epoch for the largest galaxies occurred earlier than for smaller galaxies. This not only runs counter to the popular…
Surveys of the local and distant Universe are the means to test and improve our models of galaxy formation. Substantial successes in the models are evident, while there is also considerable recent progress in identifying what remains to be…
In large scale structure formation, massive systems assemble through the hierarchical merging of less massive ones. Galaxy clusters, being the most massive and thus the most recent collapsed structures, still grow by accreting smaller…
Recent work on the equilibrium and stability of ellipsoidal stellar systems is reviewed. The absence of constant-density cores in early-type galaxies implies that chaos and high-order resonances are generic features of the motion in…
We present the results of a numerical code that combines multi-zone chemical evolution with 1-D hydrodynamics to follow in detail the evolution and radial behaviour of gas and stars during the formation of elliptical galaxies. We use the…
Understanding how galaxies evolved from the early Universe through cosmic time is a fundamental part of modern astrophysics. In order to study this evolution it is important to sample the galaxies at various times in a consistent way…
I present a brief review of the stellar population properties of massive galaxies, focusing on early-type galaxies in particular, with emphasis on recent results from the ATLAS3D Survey. I discuss the occurrence of young stellar ages, cold…
In this series of lectures I review recent observational progress in constraining models of galaxy formation and evolution highlighting the importance advances in addressing questions of the assembly history and origin of the Hubble…
We reconstruct the history of the cosmic star formation in the universe by means of detailed chemical evolution models for galaxies of different morphological types. We consider a picture of coeval, non-interacting evolving galaxies where…
We discuss the merging rates in compact groups of 5 identical elliptical galaxies. All groups have the same mass and binding energy. We consider both cases with individual halos and cases where the halo is common to all galaxies and…