As early as 10 Gyr ago, galaxies with more than 1011 M ☉ of stars already existed. While most of these massive galaxies must have subsequently transformed through on-going star formation and mergers with other galaxies, a small fraction (lsim0.1%) may have survived untouched until today. Searches for such relic galaxies, useful windows to explore

Observational studies are showing that the galaxy-wide stellar initial mass function (IMF) is top-heavy in galaxies with high star formation rates (SFRs). Calculating the integrated galactic stellar initial mass function (IGIMF) as a function of the SFR of a galaxy, it follows that galaxies which have or which formed with SFRs >10 M⊙ yr-1 would

We present the results of a numerical adaptive mesh refinement hydrodynamical and N-body simulation in a Λ cold dark matter cosmology. We focus on the analysis of the main properties of massive galaxies (M* > 1011 M⊙) at z = 0. For all the massive virtual galaxies, we carry out a careful study of their one-dimensional density, luminosity, velocity

The use of integral field spectroscopy is since recently allowing to measure the emission line fluxes of an increasingly large number of star-forming galaxies, both locally and at high redshift. Many studies have used these fluxes to derive the gas-phase metallicity of the galaxies by applying the so-called strong-line methods. However, the

Recent evidence based independently on spectral line strengths and dynamical modelling point towards a non-universal stellar initial mass function (IMF), probably implying an excess of low-mass stars in elliptical galaxies with a high velocity dispersion. Here, we show that a time-independent bottom-heavy IMF is compatible neither with the observed

Context. Galaxies, which often contain ionised gas, sometimes also exhibit a so-called low-ionisation nuclear emission line region (LINER). For 30 years, this was attributed to a central mass-accreting supermassive black hole (more commonly known as active galactic nucleus, AGN) of low luminosity, making LINER galaxies the largest AGN sub

A method that is widely used to analyse stellar populations in galaxies is to apply the theoretically derived responses of stellar spectra and line indices to element abundance variations, which are hereafter referred to as response functions. These are applied in a differential way, to base models, in order to generate spectra or indices with

Aims: Fossil record methods based on spectral synthesis techniques have matured during the past decade, and their application to integrated galaxy spectra has fostered substantial advances in the understanding of galaxies and their evolution. Yet, because of the lack of spatial resolution, these studies are limited to a global view, providing no

We present orbit-based dynamical models and stellar population analysis of Sloan Digital Sky Survey J151741.75-004217.6, a low-redshift (z = 0.116) early-type galaxy (ETG) which, for its moderate luminosity, has an exceptionally high velocity dispersion. We aim to determine the central black hole (BH) mass (M•), the i-band stellar mass-to-light

We perform a spectroscopic study to constrain the stellar initial mass function (IMF) by using a large sample of 24 781 early-type galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-based Spheroids Panchromatic Investigation in Different Environmental Regions survey. Clear evidence is found of a trend between IMF and central velocity dispersion (σ0)

We introduce a new method to measure the dispersion of mmax values of star clusters and show that the observed sample of mmax is inconsistent with random sampling from a universal stellar initial mass function (IMF) at a 99.9 per cent confidence level. The scatter seen in the mmax-Mecl data can be mainly (76 per cent) understood as being the result

The number of present day massive galaxies that have survived untouched since their formation at high-z is an important observational constraint to the hierarchical galaxy formation models. Using three different semianalytical models based on the Millenium simulation, we quantify the expected fraction and number densities of the massive galaxies

Using a compilation of 379 massive (stellar mass M ≳ 1011 M⊙) spheroid-like galaxies from the near-infrared Palomar/DEEP-2 survey, we investigated, up to z ˜ 1, whether the presence of companions depends on the size of the host galaxy. We explored the presence of companions for mass ratios with respect to the central massive galaxy down to 1 : 10

We use deep integral field spectroscopy data from the CALIFA survey to study the warm interstellar medium (wim) over the entire extent and optical spectral range of 32 nearby early-type galaxies (ETGs). We find that faint nebular emission is extended in all cases, and its surface brightness decreases roughly as ∝ r-α. The large standard deviation

We study the global efficiency of star formation in high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of gas discs embedded in isolated early-type and spiral galaxies. Despite using a universal local law to form stars in the simulations, we find that the early-type galaxies are offset from the spirals on the large-scale Kennicutt relation, and form stars

This work investigates the effect of the aperture size on derived galaxy properties for which we have spatially-resolved optical spectra. We focus on some indicators of star formation activity and dust attenuation for spiral galaxies that have been widely used in previous work on galaxy evolution. We investigated 104 spiral galaxies from the CALIFA

Supernova remnants are among the most spectacular examples of astrophysical pistons in our cosmic neighborhood. The gas expelled by the supernova explosion is launched with velocities ∼1000 kilometers per second into the ambient, tenuous interstellar medium, producing shocks that excite hydrogen lines. We have used an optical integral-field

Numerical simulations of double-barred galaxies predict the build-up of different structural components (e.g. bulges, inner discs) in the central regions of disc galaxies. In those simulations, inner bars have a prominent role in the internal secular evolution of their host galaxies. The development of bulges and inner discs is, however, poorly

Taking advantage of the ultradeep near-infrared imaging obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, we detect and explore for the first time the properties of the stellar haloes of two Milky Way-like galaxies at z ˜ 1. We find that the structural properties of those haloes (size and shape) are similar to the ones found

Recent results on the non-universality of the Initial Mass Function (IMF) have shown strong evidence of IMF variations with galaxy velocity dispersion, with a corresponding impact on other stellar population parameters, line indices and colours. Using a set of stellar population models with varying IMF slopes, we provide additional caveats on the