Related papers: Massive spheroids can form in single minor mergers

Several studies have tried to ascertain whether or not the increase in abundance of the early-type galaxies (E-S0a's) with time is mainly due to major mergers, reaching opposite conclusions. We have tested it directly through…

We study the shape and evolution of the star formation main sequence in three independently developed semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. We focus, in particular, on the characterization of the model galaxies that are significantly…

Using the ARTEMIS set of 45 high-resolution cosmological simulations, we investigate a range of merger-induced dynamical transformations of Milky Way-like galaxies. We first identify populations of accreted stars on highly radial orbits,…

Driven by gravity, massive structures like galaxies and clusters of galaxies are believed to grow continuously through hierarchical merging and accretion of smaller systems. Observational evidence of accretion events is provided by the…

Recent images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) of the interacting disk galaxies NGC 4038/4039 (the Antennae) reveal clusters of many dozens and possibly hundreds of young compact massive star clusters within projected regions…

We study the formation of galaxies in a Lambda-CDM Universe using high resolution hydrodynamical simulations with a multiphase treatment of gas, cooling and feedback, focusing on the formation of discs. Our simulations follow eight haloes…

With projects such as Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and Pulsar Timing Arrays expected to detect gravitational waves from supermassive black hole mergers in the near future, it is key that we understand what we expect those…

The majority of stars in today's Universe reside within spheroids, which are bulges of spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies. Their formation is still an unsolved problem. Infrared/submm-bright galaxies at high redshifts have long been…

We report the results of a comprehensive study of the relationship between galaxy size, stellar mass and specific star-formation rate (sSFR) at redshifts 1.3<z<1.5. Based on a mass complete (M_star >= 6x10^10 Msun), spectroscopic sample…

Determining how galaxies accumulate stellar mass is paramount to understanding the Universe. Two primary mechanisms drive this process: star-formation (SF) & mergers. Our understanding of star formation, and to some degree the processes…

We study resolution effects in numerical simulations of gas-rich and gas-poor major mergers, and show that the formation of slowly-rotating elliptical galaxies often requires a resolution that is beyond the present-day standards to be…

The population of compact massive galaxies observed at z > 1 are hypothesised, both observationally and in simulations, to be merger remnants of gas-rich disc galaxies. To probe such a scenario we analyse a sample of 12 gas-rich and active…

We present the first detailed integral field spectroscopy study of nine central void galaxies with M*>10^10 Msun using the Wide Field Spectrograph (WiFeS) to determine how a range of assembly histories manifest themselves in the current day…

Understanding the processes that drive the formation of black holes (BHs) is a key topic in observational cosmology. While the observed $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--$M_{\mathrm{Bulge}}$ correlation in bulge-dominated galaxies is thought to be…

Direct imaging observations of planets revealed that wide-orbit ($>10$ au) giant planets exist even around subsolar-metallicity host stars and do not require metal-rich environments for their formation. A possible formation mechanism of…

The relation between the star formation rate and the stellar mass of star-forming galaxies has been used to argue that major mergers cannot be the main driver of star formation. Here, we re-examine these arguments using the representative…

We propose a pebble-driven planet formation scenario to form giant planets with high multiplicity and large orbital distances in the early gas disk phase. We perform N-body simulations to investigate the growth and migration of low-mass…

Galaxy morphologies in clusters have undergone a remarkable transition over the past several billion years. Distant clusters at $z \sim 0.4$ are filled with small spiral galaxies, many of which are disturbed and show evidence of multiple…

Using three fiducial Nbody+SPH simulations, we follow the merging of two disk galaxies with a hot gaseous halo component each, and examine whether the merger remnant can be a spiral galaxy. The stellar progenitor disks are destroyed by…

We use a large sample of $\sim 350,000$ galaxies constructed by combining the UKIDSS UDS, VIDEO/CFHT-LS, UltraVISTA/COSMOS and GAMA survey regions to probe the major merging histories of massive galaxies ($>10^{10}\ \mathrm{M}_\odot$) at…