Related papers: Starbursting Nuclei in Old Dwarf Galaxies
We describe the construction and study of an objectively-defined sample of early-type galaxies in low-density environments. The sample galaxies are selected from a recently-completed redshift survey using uniform and readily-quantified…
Keck/ESI spectroscopy is presented for six Virgo Cluster dwarf elliptical (dE) galaxies. The mean line-of-sight velocity and velocity dispersion are resolved as a function of radius along the major axis of each galaxy, nearly doubling the…
We present preliminary results of an extensive study of the fundamental properties of dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs) in the Coma cluster. Our study will combine HST surface photometry with ground-based UBRIJK photometry and optical…
The nuclear star cluster surrounding the massive black hole at the Galactic Centre consists of young and old stars, with most of the stellar mass in an extended, cuspy distribution of old stars. The compact cluster of young stars was…
We examine the properties of embedded clusters within 1 kiloparsec using new data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, as well as recent results from 2MASS and other ground-based near-infrared surveys. We use surveys of entire molecular clouds…
Recent spectroscopic and morphological observational studies of galaxies around NGC 1399 in the Fornax Cluster (Drinkwater et al. 2000b) have discovered several `ultra-compact dwarf' galaxies with intrinsic sizes of $\sim$ 100 pc and…
During the last $\sim$ 30 Myr the nuclear stellar disk in the Galactic center has been the most prolific star forming region of the Milky Way when averaged by volume. Remarkably, the combined mass of the only three clusters present today in…
We present narrow band photometry of 91 dwarf ellipticals in the Coma and Fornax clusters taken through the Stromgren (uvby) filter system. Dividing the sample by dwarf morphology into nucleated (dEN) and non-nucleated (dE) dwarfs reveals…
Understanding stellar birth requires observations of the clouds in which they form. These clouds are dense and self-gravitating, and in all existing observations, they are molecular with H_2 the dominant species and CO the best available…
Molecular clouds at very high latitudes ($b > 60^o$) away from the Galactic plane are considered rare and not conventional sites of star formation. Contrary to this, the recent discovery of high latitude embedded Clusters can possibly…
We investigate the dynamical evolution of star clusters during their formation, assuming that they are born from a turbulent starless clump of a given mass that is embedded within a parent self-gravitating molecular cloud characterized by a…
We present preliminary results from surface photometry of a sample of early-type galaxies observed with NICMOS on board HST in the F160W (H-band) filter. Dust is found to occur mostly in galaxies which possess unresolved nuclei, and in a…
Using images collected with the WFC3 camera on board of the Hubble Space Telescope, we detect stellar clumps in continuum-subtracted $H\alpha$ and ultraviolet (F275W filter), such clumps are often embedded in larger regions (star-forming…
Recently the search for the oldest stars have started to focus on the Bulge region. The Galactic bulge hosts extremely old stars, with ages compatible with the ages of the oldest halo stars. The data coming from these recent observations…
We report results from a panoramic spectroscopic survey of 955 objects in the field of the rich cluster Cl 0024+1654 (z~0.4), complementing the HST imaging presented in the first paper in this series. Our new spectroscopic sample includes…
A cutoff in the linear matter power spectrum at dwarf galaxy scales has been shown to affect the abundance, formation mechanism and age of dwarf haloes and their galaxies at high and low redshift. We use hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy…
We review the formation and early evolution of the most massive and dense young stellar clusters, focusing on the role they can play in our understanding of star and planet formation as a whole. Young massive cluster (YMC) progenitor clouds…
We present a systematic search for disks in 476 Virgo cluster early-type dwarf (dE) galaxies. Disk features (spiral arms, edge-on disks, or bars) were identified by applying unsharp masks to a combined image from three bands (g, r, i), as…
Clues to the formation and evolution of Nuclear Star Clusters (NSCs) lie in their stellar populations. However, these structures are often very faint compared to their host galaxy, and spectroscopic analysis of NSCs is hampered by…
(Abridged) We present a study of the optical spectra of a sample of eight star-forming nuclear rings and the nuclei of their host galaxies. The spectra were obtained with the ISIS spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope and cover a…