Traces of Galaxy Formation: Stellar populations, Dynamics and Morphology

Group members
Start year
2006
Organizational Unit
RESEARCH DIVISION
Organizing institutions
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC)

Related grants:

General
Description

Welcome to the Traces of Galaxy Formation research group website.

We are a large, diverse, and very active research group aiming to provide a comprehensive picture for the formation of galaxies in the Universe. Rooted in detailed stellar population analysis, we are constantly exploring and developing new tools and ideas to understand how galaxies came to be what we now observe.

A complex star formation history, as the one expected to describe galaxy evolution, needs a multidisciplinary approach to be fully understood. Our group at the IAC consists of experienced researchers in cosmological simulations, dynamical studies, stellar populations and morphological properties of galaxies up to high redshift. We combine different approaches (e.g. observations and theory, secular and cosmological evolution studies) to obtain a complete view of the dominant mechanisms driving the evolution of galaxies.

Within this general framework, we are currently exploring three main areas of research:

  1. Stellar population synthesis models

    • Development of new stellar population synthesis models
    • Stellar population analysis tools
    • Universality of the stellar initial mass function (IMF)

     

  2. Cosmic evolution of galaxies

    • Massive galaxy evolution
    • Stellar populations in different environments
    • Low surface brightness science
    • Machine learning and cosmological simulations

     

  3. Evolutionary processes in nearby galaxies
    • The role of black holes in the evolution of galaxies
    • Surveys of nearby galaxies
    • Stellar kinematics and dynamical models

If you want to get in contact or work with us, please send an email to the head of the group (Anna Ferré-Mateu, anna.ferre [at] iac.es (anna[dot]ferre[at]iac[dot]es)).

Principal investigator
Project staff

Here you can find some of our most recent highlights:

Related publications

Numerical simulations of dark matter haloes produce polytropic central cores when reaching thermodynamic equilibrium 2021MNRAS.504.2832S
Fingerprints of stellar populations in the near-infrared: an optimized set of spectral indices in the JHK bands 0 2021MNRAS.504.2190E
Beyond the hubble sequence - exploring galaxy morphology with unsupervised machine learning 2021MNRAS.503.4446C
Investigating the projected phase space of Gaussian and non-Gaussian clusters 2021MNRAS.503.3065S
The Fornax3D project: Assembly histories of lenticular galaxies from a combined dynamical and population orbital analysis 2021A&A...647A.145P
The number of globular clusters around the iconic UDG DF44 is as expected for dwarf galaxies 2021MNRAS.502.5921S
Evaluating hydrodynamical simulations with green valley galaxies 2021MNRAS.502.3685A
BAYES-LOSVD: A Bayesian framework for non-parametric extraction of the line-of-sight velocity distribution of galaxies 2021A&A...646A..31F
Constraining stellar population parameters from narrow band photometric surveys using convolutional neural networks 2021MNRAS.502.1355L
Galaxies within galaxies in the TIMER survey: stellar populations of inner bars are scaled replicas of main bars 2021A&A...646A..42B
The nature of giant clumps in high-z discs: a deep-learning comparison of simulations and observations 2021MNRAS.501..730G
A deep learning approach to test the small-scale galaxy morphology and its relationship with star formation activity in hydrodynamical simulations 2021MNRAS.501.4359Z
The kinematics of young and old stellar populations in nuclear rings of MUSE TIMER galaxies 2020A&A...644A.116R
Galactic cirri in deep optical imaging 2020A&A...644A..42R
The Galaxy "Missing Dark Matter" NGC 1052-DF4 is Undergoing Tidal Disruption 2020ApJ...904..114M
Detecting outliers in astronomical images with deep generative networks 2020MNRAS.496.2346M
Stellar masses of giant clumps in CANDELS and simulated galaxies using machine learning 2020MNRAS.499..814H
Inside-out formation of nuclear discs and the absence of old central spheroids in barred galaxies of the TIMER survey 2020A&A...643A..65B
Kinematic signatures of nuclear discs and bar-driven secular evolution in nearby galaxies of the MUSE TIMER project 2020A&A...643A..14G
The principle of maximum entropy explains the cores observed in the mass distribution of dwarf galaxies 2020A&A...642L..14S
The Fornax Deep Survey with VST. X. The assembly history of the bright galaxies and intra-group light in the Fornax A subgroup 2020A&A...640A.137R
Detection of young (≤20 Myr) stellar populations in apparently quenched low-mass galaxies using red spectral line indices 2020MNRAS.498.1002D
NIHAO XXIV: rotation- or pressure-supported systems? Simulated Ultra Diffuse Galaxies show a broad distribution in their stellar kinematics 2020MNRAS.497.4282C
The SAMI-Fornax Dwarfs Survey I: sample, observations, and the specific stellar angular momentum of dwarf elliptical galaxies 2020MNRAS.497.1571S
On the accretion of a new group of galaxies on to Virgo: I. Internal kinematics of nine in-falling dEs 2020MNRAS.497.1904B
The Fornax Deep Survey with VST. IX. Catalog of sources in the FDS area with an example study for globular clusters and background galaxies 2020A&A...639A.136C
Disentangling the formation history of galaxies via population-orbit superposition: method validation 2020MNRAS.496.1579Z
Larger λ<SUB>R</SUB> in the disc of isolated active spiral galaxies than in their non-active twins 2020A&A...639L...9D
Quenching as a Contest between Galaxy Halos and Their Central Black Holes 2020ApJ...897..102C
The Fornax Deep Survey with VST. VIII. Connecting the accretion history with the cluster density 2020A&A...639A..14S
The Fornax Deep Survey with the VST. IV. A size and magnitude limited catalog of dwarf galaxies in the area of the Fornax cluster (Corrigendum) 2020A&A...638C...5V
The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Stellar Population Gradients of Central Galaxies 2020ApJ...896...75S
The bivariate gas-stellar mass distributions and the mass functions of early- and late-type galaxies at z {∼} 0 2020PASA...37...24R
A detailed look at the stellar populations in green valley galaxies 2020MNRAS.495.2720A
Fornax 3D project: Automated detection of planetary nebulae in the centres of early-type galaxies and first results 2020A&A...637A..62S
Kinematic analysis of eagle simulations: evolution of λ<SUB>Re</SUB> and its connection with mergers and gas accretion 2020MNRAS.494.5652W
Stellar populations across galaxy bars in the MUSE TIMER project 2020A&A...637A..56N
The Fornax 3D project: Non-linear colour-metallicity relation of globular clusters 2020A&A...637A..27F
The Fornax 3D project: Globular clusters tracing kinematics and metallicities 2020A&A...637A..26F
The mass of our Galaxy from satellite proper motions in the Gaia era 2020MNRAS.494.5178F
GalIMF–E-MILES library: Impact of an environment-dependent initial mass function on stellar population spectra
Extragalactic archaeology provides new clues about the formation of the galaxies
ZF-UDS-7329: A relic galaxy in the early Universe
The “last breaths” in the lives of galaxies
Type
Research
State
In progress

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