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UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

Understanding the formation and evolution of the galaxies is undoubtly one of the greatest challenges of modern astronomy. An exquisite detailed analysis of the nearby galaxy properties is now achievable due to the recent increase of observational data of large quality. Such quality data is also becoming more common for galaxies up to z~1. Despite the growing observational evidence, currently there is not yet a consensus on how the high-z samples are transformed into the local population of galaxies. A clear picture of this process has not yet been achieved due to the intrinsic complexity of the galaxy formation mechanism. According to the current most favoured paradigm, the formation and evolution of the galaxies is the result of a complex combination of hierarchical clustering, gas dissipation, merging and secular evolution. While gravity guides the assembly of the cosmic structures, gas is cooled down into the centre of dark matter haloes and form a disc. This disc adquires angular momemtum through tidal torquing due to nearby structures. Gas finally settles down and form stars. Once these primitive galaxies are form, mergers among them are expected to form the current observed galaxy population of spirals and ellipticals. Depending on which component (gas or dissipative vs stellar or non-dissipative) is dominant during the merger phase, the merger remnant properties can be very different.

A complex formation history, as the one expected to describe galaxy evolution, needs a multidisciplinary approach to be fully understood. This study must contain an analisis of the stellar populations, dinamics of the different galaxy components and a quantitative morphological analysis of galaxy structure. To address these questions our group is composed by experienced researchers on cosmological simulations, dynamic studies, analysis of stellar populations and properties of galaxies with redshift up to z~3. Our goal for the next few years is to achieve a comprenhensive view of the galaxy evolution in the last half of the Universe life.