Related papers: Studying Young Stars with Large Spectroscopic Surv…
The star-formation histories of the main stellar components of the Milky Way constrain critical aspects of galaxy formation and evolution. I discuss recent determinations of such histories, together with their interpretation in terms of…
Estimating ages for stars is difficult at best, but Galactic problems have their own requirements that go beyond those for other areas of astrophysics. As in other areas, asteroseismology is helping, and in this review I discuss some of the…
In the first two years of operation JWST has delivered key new insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early Universe. By combining imaging with spectroscopy, we discovered and characterised the first generation of…
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…
The stellar populations of galaxies contain a wealth of detailed information. From the youngest, most massive stars, to almost invisible remnants, the history of star formation is encoded in the stars that make up a galaxy. Extracting some,…
Star formation plays a central role in the evolution of galaxies and of the Universe as a whole. Studies of star-forming regions in the local universe have shown that star formation typically occurs in a clustered fashion. Building a…
If we are to develop a comprehensive and predictive theory of galaxy formation and evolution, it is essential that we obtain an accurate assessment of how and when galaxies assemble their stellar populations, and how this assembly varies…
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…
Globular clusters are among the oldest structures in the Universe and they host today low-mass stars and no gas. However, there has been a time when they formed as gaseous objects hosting a large number of short-lived, massive stars. Many…
The galaxies of the Local Group that are currently forming stars can serve as our laboratories for understanding star formation and the evolution of massive stars. In this talk I will summarize what I think we've learned about these topics…
For several decades now, open clusters have been used to study the structure and chemical evolution of the disk of our Galaxy. Due to the fact that their ages and metallicities can be determined with relatively good precision, and since…
The formation of stars is a key process in astrophysics. Detailed knowledge of the physical mechanisms that govern stellar birth is a prerequisite for understanding the formation and evolution of our galactic home, the Milky Way. A theory…
The last decade has seen enormous progress in understanding the structure of the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies via the production of large-scale digital surveys of the sky like 2MASS and SDSS, as well as specialized, counterpart…
Galactic bulges are central to understanding galaxy formation and evolution. Here we report on recent studies using micro-lensing events to obtain spectra of high resolution and moderately high signal-to-noise ratios of dwarf stars in the…
Young massive clusters are dense aggregates of young stars that form the fundamental building blocks of galaxies. Several examples exist in the Milky Way Galaxy and the Local Group, but they are particularly abundant in starburst and…
Star clusters are ideal tracers of star formation activity in systems outside the volume that can be studied using individual, resolved stars. These unresolved clusters span orders of magnitude in brightness and mass, and their formation is…
Gaia will identify several 1e5 white dwarfs, most of which will be in the solar neighborhood at distances of a few hundred parsecs. Ground-based optical follow-up spectroscopy of this sample of stellar remnants is essential to unlock the…
Studies of stellar populations, understood to mean collections of stars with common spatial, kinematic, chemical, and/or age distributions, have been reinvigorated during the last decade by the advent of large-area sky surveys such as SDSS,…
Various observational techniques have been used to survey galaxies and AGN, from X-rays to radio frequencies, both photometric and spectroscopic. I will review these techniques aimed at the study of galaxy evolution and of the role of AGNs…
We discuss recent observations of stars located close to the symmetry plane of the Milky Way, and examine them in the context of theories of Galaxy formation and evolution. The kinematics, ages, and compositions of thin disk stars in the…