Related papers: The formation of compact dwarf ellipticals through…
Most clusters and groups of galaxies contain a giant elliptical galaxy in their centres which far outshines and outweighs normal ellipticals. The origin of these brightest cluster galaxies is intimately related to the collapse and formation…
Giant elliptical galaxies, believed to be built from the merger of lesser galaxies, are known to house a massive black hole at their center rather than a compact star cluster. If low- and intermediate-mass galaxies do indeed partake in the…
The formation pathways of compact stellar systems (CSSs) are still under debate. We utilize the \NH\ simulation to investigate the origins of such objects in the field environment. We identified 55 CSS candidates in the simulation whose…
Diffuse elliptical galaxies (or dwarfs) are the numerically dominant population in clusters like Virgo and Fornax. They carry only a few percent of the baryonic mass but are very sensitive to the environment; so they keep a fossil record of…
There are many proposed mechanisms driving the morphological transformation of disk galaxies to elliptical galaxies. In this paper, we determine if the observed transformation in low mass groups can be explained by the merger histories of…
Elliptical galaxies are believed to consist of a single population of old stars formed together at an early epoch in the Universe, yet recent analyses of galaxy spectra seem to indicate the presence of significant younger populations of…
We performe N-body simulations of encounters between spherical systems surrounded by a spherical halo. Following a preceding paper with a similar aim, the initial systems include a spherical Jaffe model for the luminous matter and a…
Two competing theories posit that Ultra Compact Dwarfs (UCDs) form either as the stripped nuclei of dwarf galaxies or as giant globular clusters (GGCs) associated with the largest globular cluster (GC) systems. By focussing on the field and…
The most massive elliptical galaxies show a prominent multi-modality in their globular cluster system color distributions. Understanding the mechanisms which lead to multiple globular cluster sub-populations is essential for a complete…
We investigate the stellar composition of bulges and elliptical galaxies as predicted by the CDM paradigm using semi-analytical modelling. We argue that spheroid stars are built up of two main components, {\it merger} and {\it quiescent},…
We revisit the scaling relations and star-forming histories of local elliptical galaxies using a novel selection method applied to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7. We combine two probability-based automated spectroscopic and morphological…
Dwarf ellipticals have the lowest stellar densities of any galaxies, but paradoxically are most common in the densest regions of the universe, and are especially frequent in rich clusters of galaxies. Simple estimates suggest that low…
We study the evolution of dwarf (L_H < 10^{9.6} L_Ho) star forming and quiescent galaxies in the Virgo cluster by comparing their UV to radio centimetric properties to the predictions of multizone chemo-spectrophotometric models of galaxy…
Recently, very massive compact stellar systems have been discovered in the intracluster regions of galaxy clusters and in the nuclear regions of late-type disk galaxies. It is unclear how these compact stellar systems -- known as…
We study the correlation between the morphological mix of cluster galaxies and the assembly history of the parent cluster by taking advantage of two independently developed semi-analytic models for galaxy formation and evolution. In our…
We test the hypothesis that elliptical galaxies are formed by violent mergers in a universe with hierarchical structure formation. Within the framework of a semi-analytic scheme for galaxy formation, we predict the distribution of…
Elliptical galaxies formed in a major merger tend to become more nearly spherical with time, thanks to the gravitational effect of their central black hole (or black holes). Observational results indicate that elliptical galaxies with older…
A subgroup of dwarf galaxies have characteristics of a possible evolutionary transition between star-forming systems and dwarf ellipticals. These systems host significant starbursts in combination with smooth, elliptical outer envelopes and…
We summarize current models of the formation of spheroidal stellar systems. Whereas globular clusters form in an efficient mode of star formation inside turbulent molecular clouds, the origin of galactic spheroids, that is bulges, dwarf…
Essentially all Ultra-Luminous IR Galaxies (ULIRGs) are in disturbed, interacting or merging systems. It is known that interactions tend to induce galactic starbursts. Thus, elliptical galaxies which are formed in mergers will tend to have…