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Supermassive black holes (SMBH) of size $10^{6-10}M_{\odot}$ are common in the Universe and they define the center of the galaxies. A galaxy and the SMBH are generally thought to have co-evolved. However, the SMBH cannot evolve so fast as…
Recent observational studies have revealed that the Galactic bulge has cylindrical rotation and a steeper vertical metallicity gradient. We adopt two representative models for the bulge formation and thereby investigate whether the two…
We study the dominant central giant elliptical galaxies in ``Fossil groups'' using deep optical (R-band) and near infrared (Ks-band) photometry. These galaxies are as luminous as the brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), raising immediate…
We perform a detailed photometric analysis (bulge-disk-bar decomposition and Concentration-Asymmetry-Clumpiness - CAS parametrization) for a well defined sample of isolated galaxies, extracted from the Catalog of Isolated Galaxies…
The formation of thick stellar disks in spiral galaxies is studied. Simulations of gas-rich young galaxies show formation of internal clumps by gravitational instabilities, clump coalescence into a bulge, and disk thickening by strong…
We have done a detailed study on the structural and kinematical properties of lenticular and early- and late-type spiral galaxies with bars, aiming to explore the formation and evolution processes of stellar bars in galaxies, and their…
We investigate a model in which galactic nuclei form via the coalescence of pre-existing stellar systems containing supermassive black holes. Merger simulations are carried out using N-body algorithms that can follow the formation and decay…
Recent progress on the structure and dynamics of bulges is reviewed. Those aspects that link galaxy bulges either to oblate spheroids akin to elliptical galaxies or to rapidly-rotating, flattened systems more nearly resembling the products…
We analyse the current build-up of stellar mass within the disks and bulges of nearby galaxies through a comparison of the spatial distributions of forming and old stellar populations. H alpha and R-band imaging are used to determine the…
A large fraction of bulgeless disk galaxies contain young compact stellar systems at their centers, in spite of the local gravitational stability of these disks. We evaluate two contrasting hypotheses for the origin of the nuclear star…
Observations of the stellar content of the Milky Way's bulge helps to understand the stellar content and evolution of distant galaxies. In this brief overview I will first highlight some recent work directed towards measuring the history of…
In this paper we present gas density, star formation rate, stellar masses, and bulge disk decompositions for a sample of 60 galaxies. Our sample is the combined sample of BIMA SONG, CARMA STING, and PdBI NUGA surveys. We study the effect of…
Recent observations indicate that the mass of Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) correlate differently with different galaxy stellar components. Comparing such observations with the results of "ab initio" galaxy formation models can provide…
Spiral-driven instabilities may drive gas inflow to enhance central star formation in disk galaxies. We investigate this hypothesis using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in a sample of 2779 nearby unbarred star-forming main-sequence…
Observations of the nearby large galaxies that can be examined in particularly close detail suggest that many have small stellar luminosity fractions in bulges and haloes. Simulations of galaxy formation tend to produce considerably larger…
This review focuses on how galaxies and their globular cluster systems form. I first discuss the now fairly convincing evidence that some globular clusters form in galaxy starbursts/mergers. One way these observations are valuable is they…
We use a sample built on the SDSS DR7 catalogue and the bulge-disc decomposition of Simard et al. (2011) to study how the bulge and disc components contribute to the parent galaxy's star formation activity, by determining its position in…
We have used the full radial extent of images from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 to extract surface brightness profiles from a sample of six, local lenticular galaxy candidates.…
We present the metallicity results from the ARGOS spectroscopic survey of the Galactic bulge. Our aim is to understand the formation of the Galactic bulge: did it form via mergers, as expected from Lambda CDM theory, or from disk…
We summarize some recent results from our observational campaign to study the central regions of spiral galaxies of late Hubble type (Scd - Sm). These disk-dominated, bulgeless galaxies have an apparently uneventful merger history. The…