Related papers: Colour-Magnitude Diagrams from microlensing projec…
Microlensing maps -- that is, contours of equal numbers of events per $10^6$ source stars -- are provided for the inner Galaxy under two alternative hypotheses : (1) the bulge is an oblate axisymmetric spheroid or (2) the bulge is a prolate…
We quantify the effects of Galactic extinction on the derived luminosity and diameter functions and on the density field of a redshift sample. Galaxy magnitudes are more affected by extinction than are diameters, although the effect on the…
We summarize recent work on the structure and dynamics of the Galactic bar and inner disk. Current work focusses on constructing a quantitative model which integrates NIR photometry, source count observations, gas kinematics, stellar…
The bulge is a region of the Galaxy which is of tremendous interest for understanding Galaxy formation. However, measuring photometry and kinematics in it raises several inherent issues, like high extinction in the visible and severe…
Many aspects of the evolution of stars, and in particular the evolution of binary stars, remain beyond our ability to model them in detail. Instead, we rely on observations to guide our often phenomenological models and pin down uncertain…
This paper describes the first catalogue of photometrically-derived stellar mass estimates for intermediate-redshift (z < 0.65) galaxies in the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) spectroscopic redshift survey. These masses, as well as the full…
In large and complicated stellar systems like galaxies it is difficult to predict the number and characteristics of a black hole population. Such populations may be modelled as an aggregation of homogeneous (i.e. having uniform star…
We have obtained repeated images of 6 fields towards the Galactic bulge in 5 passbands (u, g, r, i, z) with the DECam imager on the Blanco 4m telescope at CTIO. From over 1.6 billion individual photometric measurements in the field centered…
We present an analysis of the integrated properties of the stellar populations in the Universidad Complutense de Madrid Survey of Halpha-selected galaxies. In this paper, the first of a series, we describe in detail the techniques developed…
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…
Selected results on estimating cosmological parameters from simulated weak lensing data with noise are presented. Numerical simulations of ray tracing through N-body simulations have been used to generate shear and convergence maps due to…
We have done a robust statistical analysis of UBV color profiles of 257 Sbc barred and unbarred galaxies. We found that there is an excess of barred galaxies among the objects with null or positive (bluish inward) color gradients, which…
We have derived the uncertainties to be expected in the derivation of galaxy physical properties (star formation history, age, metallicity, reddening) when comparing broad-band photometry to the predictions of evolutionary synthesis models.…
Since the Hipparcos mission and recent large scale surveys in the optical and the near-infrared, new constraints have been obtained on the structure and evolution history of the Milky Way. The population synthesis approach is a useful tool…
Using single-component fits to SDSS/UKIDSS images of galaxies in the G09 region of the GAMA survey we study radial colour gradients across the galaxy population. We use the multiwavelength information provided by MegaMorph analysis of…
In order to map the galaxy density field on small scales in the local universe, we use the Nearby Optical Galaxy (NOG) sample, which is currently one of the largest, nearly complete, magnitude-limited ($B\leq$ 14 mag), all-sky sample of…
Based on the most complete sample of Galactic open star clusters up to 1.8 kpc, we performed statistical analysis of the distribution of open cluster parameters in order to understand the Galactic structure. The geometrical characteristics…
In some scenarios for the formation of the Milky Way bulge the stellar population at the edges of the boxy bulge may be younger than those on the minor axis, or close to the Galactic center. So far the only bulge region where deep…
We investigate the origin of the colour-magnitude relation (CMR) observed in cluster galaxies by using a combination of a cosmological N-body simulation of a cluster of galaxies and a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation. The departure…
Some fine structures can nowadays be identified in the high-quality colour-magnitude diagrams (CMD) of Local Group galaxies. The clump of red giants, for instance, may present a significant colour spread, and extensions to both brighter and…