相关论文: The Nuclei of Late-type Spiral Galaxies
Recent observations with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have revealed that a large fraction of late-type (Sc and later) spiral galaxies harbor a bright, compact stellar cluster in their dynamical centers. Statistics of the mass, age, and…
(Abridged) As part of an ongoing effort to study the stellar nuclei of very late-type, bulge-less spirals, we present results from a high-resolution spectroscopic survey of nine such nuclear star clusters, undertaken with VLT/UVES. We fit…
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…
The dynamical evolution of super star clusters (SSCs) moving in the background of a dark matter halo has been investigated as a possible event responsible for the formation of bulges in late-type spirals. The underlying physical processes…
We summarise some recent results about nearby galactic bulges that are relevant to their formation. We highlight a number of significant advances in our understanding of the surface brightness profiles, stellar populations, and especially…
Spiral galaxies have most of their stellar mass in a large rotating disk, and only a modest fraction in a central spheroidal bulge. This poses a major challenge for cosmological models of galaxy formation. Galaxies form at the centre of…
The dynamical evolution of super star clusters (SSCs) moving in the background of a dark matter halo has been investigated as a possible event responsible for the formation of bulges in late-type spirals. The underlying physical processes…
Nuclear star clusters are among the densest stellar systems known and are common in both early- and late-type galaxies. They exhibit scaling relations with their host galaxy which may be related to those of supermassive black holes. These…
The large-scale prints in The Carnegie Atlas of Galaxies have been used to formulate a classification scheme for the central regions of late-type galaxies. Systems that exhibit small bright central bulges or disks (type CB) are found to be…
We investigate the stellar disk properties of a sample of 19 nearby spiral galaxies with low inclination and late Hubble type (Scd or later). We combine our high-resolution HST I-band observations with existing ground-based optical images…
Using the IRAM 30m telescope, we have surveyed an unbiased sample of 47 nearby spiral galaxies of very late (Scd-Sm) Hubble-type for emission in the CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) lines. The sensitivity of our data (a few mK) allows detection of about…
HST observations have revealed that compact sources exist at the centers of many, maybe even most, galaxies across the Hubble sequence. These sources are called "nuclei" or also "nuclear star clusters" (NCs), given that their structural…
The central regions of galaxies show the presence of massive black holes and/or dense stellar systems. The question about their modes of formation is still under debate. A likely explanation of the formation of the central dense stellar…
Context: The morphology of massive star formation in the central regions of galaxies is an important tracer of the dynamical processes that govern the evolution of disk, bulge, and nuclear activity. Aims: We present optical imaging of the…
We present photometric and morphological analyses of nuclear star clusters (NSCs) -- very dense, massive star clusters present in the central regions of most galaxies -- in a sample of 33 massive disk galaxies within 20 Mpc, part of the…
We present parsec-scale kinematics of eleven nearby galactic nuclei, derived from adaptive-optics assisted integral-field spectroscopy at (near-infrared) CO band-head wavelengths. We focus our analysis on the balance between ordered…
Recent ground-based photometric investigations suggest that central regions of late-type spirals are closely coupled to the inner disk and probably formed via secular evolution. Evidence presented in support of this model includes the…
The ACS Virgo cluster survey by Cote' and collaborators shows the presence of compact nuclei at the photocenters of many early-type galaxies. It is argued that they are the low-mass counterparts of nuclei hosting Super Massive Black Holes…
We combine deep optical and IR photometry for 326 spiral galaxies from two recent galaxy samples and report that the surface brightness profiles of late-type spirals are best fit by two exponentials. Moreover, the ratio of bulge and disk…
We review the current knowledge about nuclear star clusters (NSCs), the spectacularly dense and massive assemblies of stars found at the centers of most galaxies. Recent observational and theoretical work suggest that many NSC properties,…