Related papers: A stellar population synthesis approach to the Oos…
We exploit the first \gaia data release to study the properties of the Galactic stellar halo as traced by RR Lyrae. We demonstrate that it is possible to select a pure sample of RR Lyrae using only photometric information available in the…
The outer halo regions of early-type galaxies carry key information about their past accretion history. However, spectroscopically probing the stellar component at such galactocentric radii is still challenging. Using Keck/DEIMOS, we have…
We investigate whether the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is universal, or whether it varies significantly among young stellar clusters in the Milky Way. We propose a method to uncover the range of variation of the parameters that…
We use deep multi-epoch near-IR images of the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) Survey to measure proper motions (PMs) of stars in the Milky Way globular cluster FSR1716 = VVV-GC05. The color-magnitude diagram of this object, made…
Stellar tidal streams provide an opportunity to study the motion and structure of the disrupting galaxy as well as the gravitational potential of its host. Streams around the Milky Way are especially promising as phase space positions of…
We present mean horizontal branch absolute magnitudes and iron abundances for a sample of 39 globular clusters. These quantities were calculated in an unprecedented homogeneous fashion based on Fourier decomposition of ligt curves of RR…
We investigate the colour-magnitude relation of metal-poor globular clusters, the 'blue tilt', in the Hydra and Centaurus galaxy clusters and constrain the primordial conditions for star cluster self-enrichment. We analyse U,I photometry…
RR~Lyrae variables are widely used tracers of Galactic halo structure and kinematics, but they can also serve to constrain the distribution of the old stellar population in the Galactic bulge. With the aim of improving their near-infrared…
In the era of large spectroscopic surveys, massive databases of high-quality spectra provide tools to outline a new picture of our Galaxy. In this framework, an important piece of information is provided by our ability to infer stellar…
We show that the extended main sequence turnoffs seen in intermediate age Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) clusters, often attributed to age spreads of several hundred Myr, may be easily accounted for by variable stellar rotation in a coeval…
In order to test the prevailing paradigm of horizontal-branch (HB) stellar evolution, we use the large databases of measured RR Lyrae parameters for the globular cluster M3 (NGC 5272) recently provided by Bakos et al. and Corwin & Carney.…
We have probed the pulsating variable star content of the isolated Local Group dwarf galaxy, DDO210 (Aquarius), using archival Advanced Camera for Surveys/$Hubble$ $Space$ $Telescope$ imaging in the F475W and F814W passbands. We find a…
Isochrone computations and horizontal branch (HB) models for Y(MS)=0.23 and two values of Z (0.0001, 0.0004)are used to derive constraints on the age indicators and HB morphology of metal-poor clusters with age t (in Gyrs) in the range of…
We discuss the role that dwarf galaxies may have played in the formation of the Galactic halo (Halo) using RR Lyrae stars (RRL) as tracers of their ancient stellar component. The comparison is performed using two observables (periods,…
We present the most comprehensive picture ever obtained of the central parts of the Milky Way probed with RR Lyrae variable stars. This is a collection of 38257 RR Lyr stars detected over 182 square degrees monitored photometrically by the…
Star clusters are known to have smaller intrinsic metallicity spreads than dwarf galaxies due to their shorter star formation timescales. Here we use individual spectroscopic [Fe/H] measurements of stars in 19 Local Group dwarf galaxies, 13…
For a number of reasons, the properties of integrated stellar populations are distributed. Traditional synthesis models usually return the mean value of such distribution, and a perfect fitting to observational data is sought for to infer…
We present the first results of a project, LSD, aimed at obtaining spatially-resolved, near-infrared spectroscopy of a complete sample of Lyman-Break Galaxies at z~3. Deep observations with adaptive optics resulted in the detection of the…
We present new observations of Sextans and Leo I dwarf galaxies, that provide new insight on their stellar populations. The large sample of stars measured in Sextans allowed us to obtain a reliable estimate of the metal content of this…
Blazhko stars from the extended $BVI_{\mathrm C}$ time series of RRab stars in the globular cluster, M3, are analysed. This is the largest sample of Blazhko stars with full details of their Blazhko properties in a homogeneous stellar…