Related papers: Time-domain Studies of M31
Galaxies form and evolve in the context of their local and large-scale environments. Their baryonic content that we observe with imaging and spectroscopy is intimately connected to the properties of their dark matter halos, and to their…
Cosmic rays (CRs) can be studied through the galaxy-wide gamma-ray emission that they generate when propagating in the interstellar medium. The comparison of the diffuse signals from different systems may inform us about the key parameters…
Observational programmes currently underway with both Chandra and XMM-Newton are set to revolutionize our view of our own Galaxy. This is fortunate since the X-ray band can provide crucial diagnostics in the quest to understand the…
Dwarf galaxies make ideal laboratories to test galaxy evolution paradigms and cosmological models. Detailed studies of dwarfs across the spectrum allow us to gauge the efficacy of astrophysical processes at play in the lowest mass halos…
Although it is just over a year since the data was made public, the HDF exposure has stimulated considerable progress towards our understanding of the faint galaxy population. I present a brief personal account of the history of faint…
We present predictions for proper motions, infall times and times of first pericentric passage for 39 of M31's satellite galaxies. We estimate these by sampling satellite orbits from cosmological N-body simulations matched on mass, distance…
Their ubiquity and extreme densities make star clusters probes of prime importance of galaxy evolution. Old globular clusters keep imprints of the physical conditions of their assembly in the early Universe, and younger stellar objects,…
Detailed understanding of the formation and evolution of globular clusters (GCs) has been recently advanced through a combination of numerical simulations and analytical models. We employ a state-of-the-art model to create a comprehensive…
We summarize some of the compelling new scientific opportunities for understanding stars and stellar systems that can be enabled by sub-milliarcsec (sub-mas) angular resolution, UV-Optical spectral imaging observations, which can reveal the…
We detail how microlensing internal to M31 could be used to test whether a large fraction of the matter in spiral galaxy haloes is composed of dark objects with masses comparable to those of stars, and in the process show how the…
Despite centuries of close association, statistics and astronomy are surprisingly distant today. Most observational astronomical research relies on an inadequate toolbox of methodological tools. Yet the needs are substantial: astronomy…
Although M dwarfs are the most common stars in our stellar neighborhood they are still among the least understood. This class of objects is dominated by dramatic changes: in their interiors (fully convective, with implications in angular…
Bulges are not just elliptical subgalaxies situated in the centers of large spirals. It might seem that way from their ages and chemistry, but bulge kinematics have been known to be different since the first long slit spectra were obtained.…
The Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) will gather unprecedented spectro-photometric data on galaxies out to the highest redshifts. It is therefore crucial to identify the spectro-photometric diagnostics within reach of NGST, which will…
The 3D velocities of M31 and M33 are important for understanding the evolution and cosmological context of the Local Group. Their most massive stars are detected by Gaia, and we use Data Release 2 (DR2) to determine the galaxy proper…
If dark matter is made of neutralinos, annihilation of such Majorana particles should produce high energy cosmic rays, especially in galaxy halo high density regions like galaxy centres. M31 (Andromeda) is our nearest neighbour spiral…
We study five nearby galaxies (M100/NGC 4321, NGC 1300, M 74, M 60, and NGC 7331) by combining multiband imaging (optical, UV, NIR, and X-rays) with simple photometric measurements to show how each spectral window traces different physical…
Studying a range of old metal-poor stars provides information over cosmological timescales of our Galaxy. Such studies are indicative of the pristine gases and evolution of the Milky Way. Deriving stellar parameters and abundances from…
HST-WFPC2 F555W and F814W photometry were obtained for 16 fields of the luminous nearby spiral galaxy M31, sampling the stellar content of the disk and the halo at different distances from the center, from ~ 20 to ~ 150 arcmin (i.e. ~ 4.5…
In these lectures I review observations of star-forming molecular clouds in our Galaxy and nearby galaxies to develop a physical intuition for understanding star formation in the local and high-redshift Universe. A lot of this material is…