Absorption line profile asymmetries in ellipticals with peculiar core kinematics, and their role as diagnostics of mergers, are analyzed using self-consistent numerical merger models. The remnants of mergers involving a denser secondary component show asymmetric line-of-sight velocity distributions at their cores. Skewness is negative where the

Study of a sample of late-B fast rotators revealed narrow absorptions of C IV and Si IV in the direction of 6 stars within 200 pc of the Sun. The features are faint and narrow and in a few cases superimposed on broader and more complex profiles. It is not clear if they originate in the surroundings of the star or in the diffuse interstellar medium

Studying a sample of late-B fast rotators, the authors have detected narrow absorptions of C IV and Si IV in the direction of six stars within 200 pc of the sun. The features are faint and narrow and in a few cases superimposed on broader and more complex profiles. It is not yet clear if they originate in the surroundings of the star or in the

We use a high-resolution collisionless simulation of a Virgo-like cluster in a ΛCDM cosmology to determine the velocity and clustering properties of the diffuse stellar component in the intracluster region at the present epoch. The simulated cluster builds up hierarchically and tidal interactions between member galaxies and the cluster potential

These notes are a didactic overview of the non perturbative and background independent approach to a quantum theory of gravity known as loop quantum gravity. The definition of real connection variables for general relativity, used as a starting point in the program, is described in a simple manner. The main ideas leading to the definition of the

The Time Inference with MUSE in Extragalactic Rings (TIMER) project is a survey using the integral-field spectrograph Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the VLT to study 24 nearby barred galaxies with prominent central structures, such as nuclear rings or inner discs. One of our main goals is to estimate the cosmic epoch when galaxy discs