Related papers: A Young Blue Tidal Stream in NGC 5128
The large majority of extragalactic star cluster studies done to date have essentially used two or three-passband aperture photometry, combined with theoretical stellar population synthesis models, to obtain age estimates. The accuracy to…
We present new Hubble Space Telescope (HST)-NIC3, near-infrared H-band photometry of globular clusters (GC) around NGC 4365 and NGC 1399 in combination with archival HST-WCPC2 and ACS optical data. We find that NGC 4365 has a number of…
We show that there is a low metallicity tidal stream that runs along l=143 deg. in the South Galactic Cap, about 34 kpc from the Sun, discovered from SEGUE stellar velocities. Since the most concentrated detections are in the Cetus…
We present UBR and H$\alpha$ imaging of NGC 1620, a highly inclined spiral galaxy that contains a large scale, arc-like feature of radius 3 kpc in its outer disk at a distance of $\sim$ 11 kpc from the center. What is unusual about this…
The Ophiuchus stellar stream presents a dynamical puzzle: its old stellar populations ($\sim 12$ Gyr) cannot be reconciled with (1) its orbit in a simple model for the Milky Way potential and (2) its short angular extent, both of which…
Stellar population studies of globular clusters have suggested that the brightest clusters in the Galaxy might actually be the remnant nuclei of dwarf spheroidal galaxies. If the present Galactic globular clusters formed within larger…
We have used WFPC2 to construct B, V color-magnitude diagrams of four metal-rich globular clusters, NGC 104 (47 Tuc), NGC 5927, NGC 6388, and NGC 6441. All four clusters have well populated red horizontal branches (RHB), as expected for…
Theory suggests that a star making a close passage by a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy can under most circumstances be expected to emit a giant flare of radiation as it is disrupted and a portion of the resulting stream…
We study the globular cluster (GC) system of the dust-lane elliptical galaxy NGC 6702, using B, V and I-band photometric observations carried out at the Keck telescope. This galaxy has a spectroscopic age of ~2Gyrs suggesting recent…
In this paper, we present a holistic view of the detection, characterization, and origin of stellar streams in the disk of a simulated Milky Way-like galaxy. The star-by-star simulation of the Galaxy evolves stars born in clusters in a…
A method to search for tidal streams and to fit their orbits based on maximum likelihood is presented and applied to the Gaia data. Tests of the method are performed showing how a simulated stream produced by tidal stripping of a star…
Globular cluster systems (GCS) frequently show a bi-modal distribution of the cluster integrated colours. This work explores the arguments to support the idea that the same feature is shared by the diffuse stellar population of the galaxy…
We have used hydrodynamical simulations to model the formation of the closest giant elliptical galaxy, Centaurus A. We find that a single major merger event with a mass ratio up to 1.5, and which has happened ~2 Gyr ago, is able to…
We identify a $\sim$600 pc-wide region of active star formation located within a tidal streamer of M82 via $H\alpha$ emission ($F_{H\alpha}\sim 6.5\times10^{-14}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$), using a pathfinder instrument based on the Dragonfly…
Recent observational studies have revealed star-to-star abundance inhomogeneity among light elements (e.g., C, N, O, Na, and Al) of stars on the main sequence in the Galactic globular clusters (GCs). One of promising interpretations for…
The cold dark matter picture predicts an abundance of substructure within the Galactic halo. However, most substructures host no stars and can only be detected indirectly. Stellar streams present a promising probe of this dark substructure.…
Within the hierarchical framework for galaxy formation, merging and tidal interactions are expected to shape large galaxies to this day. While major mergers are quite rare at present, minor mergers and satellite disruptions - which result…
Strongly interacting galaxies undergo a short-lived but dramatic phase of evolution characterized by enhanced star formation, tidal tails, bridges and other morphological peculiarities. The nearest example of a pair of interacting galaxies…
Observations of extreme starbursts, often located in the cores of protoclusters, challenge the classical bottom-up galaxy formation paradigm. Giant elliptical galaxies at $z=0$ must have assembled rapidly, possibly within few 100 Myr…
Near-infrared images obtained with the CFHT WIRCam are used to investigate the recent history of the nearby Sculptor Group spiral NGC 253. The distribution of stars in the disk is lop-sided, in the sense that the projected density of AGB…