Related papers: MORGOTH: incorporating horizontal branch modelling…

The standard disc formation scenario postulates that disc forms as the gas cools and flows into the centre of the dark matter halo, conserving the specific angular momentum. Major mergers have been shown to be able to destroy or highly…

We obtain a quantitative star formation history (SFH) of a shell-like structure ('shell') located in the northeastern part of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We use the Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History (SMASH) to derive…

Context. Most of our knowledge on the stellar component of galaxies is based on the analysis of distant systems and comes from integrated light data. It is important to test whether the results of the star formation histories (SFH) obtained…

The mass-loss rates of red supergiant stars (RSGs) are poorly constrained by direct measurements, and yet the subsequent evolution of these stars depends critically on how much mass is lost during the RSG phase. In 2012 the Geneva…

Bottom-up hierarchical formation of dark matter haloes is not as monotonic as implicitly assumed in the Press-Schechter formalism: matter can be ejected into tidal tails, shells or low density `atmospheres'. The implications that the…

Several decades of observations of the most massive and most luminous stars have revealed a complex upper HR Diagram, shaped by mass loss, and inhabited by a variety of evolved stars exhibiting the consequences of their mass loss histories.…

We develop an empirical approach to infer the star formation rate in dark matter halos from the galaxy stellar mass function (SMF) at different redshifts and the local cluster galaxy luminosity function (CGLF), which has a steeper faint end…

Bars are important drivers of galaxy evolution, influencing many physical processes and properties. Characterising bars is a difficult task, especially in large-scale surveys. In this work, we propose a novel morphological segmentation…

Context. Machine-Learning (ML) solves problems by learning patterns from data, with limited or no human guidance. In Astronomy, it is mainly applied to large observational datasets, e.g. for morphological galaxy classification. Aims. We…

Understanding how star formation is regulated requires studying the energy balance between turbulence, magnetic fields, stellar feedback, and gravity within molecular clouds. However, identifying the transition region where the gravity…

Accurate star formation histories (SFHs) of galaxies are fundamental for understanding the build-up of their stellar content. However, the most accurate SFHs - those obtained from colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of resolved stars reaching…

We combine star formation along the `main sequence', quiescence, and clustering and merging to produce an empirical model for the evolution of individual galaxies. Main sequence star formation alone would significantly steepen the stellar…

This review discusses some of the observational constraints on what we know about the mass loss experienced by stars in the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) phase of evolution. Mass loss affects the maximum mass attained by the core of an AGB…

We introduce a modified detection method for measuring the luminosity of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) by introducing the composite magnitude T = I - beta [(V-I)_o - 1.50], where beta is the slope of the tip magnitude as a function…

Accurate distances to galaxies can be determined from the luminosities of stars at the Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB). We use a Maximum Likelihood algorithm to locate the TRGB in galaxy color-magnitude diagrams. The algorithm is…

We demonstrate how near-infrared (NIR) imaging of resolved luminous asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars can be used to measure well-constrained star formation histories (SFHs) across cosmic time. Using UKIRT $J$ and $K$-band imaging of M31,…

Mass loss due to line-driven winds is central to our understanding of the evolution of massive stars. We extend the evolution models introduced in Paper I, where the mass loss recipe is based on the simultaneous calculation of the wind…

This talk investigates the formation of early-type galaxies from a deliberately observational view point. I begin by reviewing the conclusions that can be reached by comparing the detailed properties of galaxies in present-day clusters,…

We introduce the SMC in space and time, a large coordinated space and ground-based program to study star formation processes and history, as well as variable stars, structure, kinematics and chemical evolution of the whole SMC. Here, we…

The location of Galactic Globular Clusters' (GC) stars on the horizontal branch (HB) should mainly depend on GC metallicity, the "first parameter", but it is actually the result of complex interactions between the red giant branch (RGB)…