Related papers: Galaxy Formation: Where Do We Stand?
The physical mechanisms and timescales that determine the morphological signatures and the quenching of star formation of typical (~L*) elliptical galaxies are not well understood. To address this issue, we have simulated the formation of a…
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…
[Abridged] Over the past two decades observations and theoretical simulations have established a global frame-work of galaxy formation and evolution in the young Universe. Galaxies formed as baryonic gas cooled at the centres of collapsing…
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…
We compare predictions of a number of empirical models and numerical simulations of galaxy formation to the conditional stellar mass functions (CSMF)of galaxies in groups of different masses obtained recently by Lan et al. to test how well…
Timescales in astronomy comprise the largest range of any scientific discipline. In the construction of physical models, this circumstance may both be a blessing and a curse. For example, galaxy evolution occurs on typical timescales of…
Metals -- heavy elements synthesized during various phases of stellar evolution or during supernova explosions -- play a fundamental role in shaping galaxy evolution. In fact, their relative abundances, spatial distribution, and scaling…
The mass assembly and star formation histories of massive galaxies identified at low redshift z in different cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, have been studied through a detailed follow-up backwards in time of their constituent mass…
We have explored prevailing modes of galaxy growth for redshifts z ~ 6-14, comparing substantially overdense and normal regions of the universe, using high-resolution zoom-in cosmological simulations. Such rare overdense regions have been…
The current understanding of galaxy formation is that it proceeds in a 'bottom up' way, with the formation of small clumps of gas and stars that merge hierarchically until giant galaxies are built up. The baryonic gas loses the thermal…
We investigate the resolved star formation properties of a sample of 45 massive galaxies (M_*>10^11M_solar) within a redshift range of 1.5 < z < 3 detected in the GOODS NICMOS Survey (Conselice et al. 2011), a HST H-band imaging program. We…
Over the past three decades the established view of a nearly homogeneuous, featureless Universe on scales larger than a few Megaparsec has been completely overhauled. In particular through the advent of ever larger galaxy redshift surveys…
We review knowledge of galaxy structures obtained by their emitted light and in the local universe where they can be studied in great detail. We discuss the shapes of, and stellar motions within, galaxies, compositional clues derived from…
While studies of galaxy evolution generally focus on extensive HI surveys at large redshifts, we argue in this paper that the understanding of detailed physical processes that drive HI evolution in galaxies is equally important.…
Present-day elliptical, spiral and irregular galaxies are large systems made of stars, gas and dark matter. Their properties result from a variety of physical processes that have occurred during the nearly fourteen billion years since the…
Galaxies evolve via a complex interaction of numerous different physical processes, scales and components. In spite of this, overall trends often appear. Simplified models for galaxy histories can be used to search for and capture such…
Galaxy evolution is commonly described through the time evolution of observational statistics such as luminosity functions and stellar mass functions. However, these quantities are projections of an underlying multivariate galaxy state…
In this review we discuss the evidence for galaxy interactions and mergers in the distant universe and the role of mergers in forming galaxies. Observations show that the fraction of massive (M> M_*) galaxies involved in major mergers is…
Our Galaxy is a complex machine in which several processes operate simultaneously: metal-poor gas is accreted, is chemically enriched by dying stars, and then drifts inwards, surrendering its angular momentum to stars; new stars are formed…
I review recent observational progress concerning the evolution of the morphological distribution of galaxies in the rich cluster environment and in the faint field population. By coupling HST imagery with ground-based spectroscopic…