Start year
2006
Organizational Unit
Organizing institutions
Grants related:
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:
- Stellar population synthesis models
- Development of new stellar population synthesis models
- Stellar population analysis tools
- Universality of the stellar initial mass function (IMF)
- Cosmic evolution of galaxies
- Massive galaxy evolution
- Stellar populations in different environments
- Low surface brightness science
- Machine learning and cosmological simulations
- 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 (Ignacio Martín-Navarro ignacio.martin [at] iac.es (ignacio[dot]martin[at]iac[dot]es)).
Members
Principal investigator
Ignacio
Martín Navarro
Project staff
Ignacio
Trujillo Cabrera
Alexandre
Vazdekis Vazdekis
Ignacio Alfonso
Ferreras Páez
Jesús
Falcón Barroso
Marc
Huertas-Portocarrero Company
Adriana de
Lorenzo-Cáceres Rodríguez
Anna
Ferré Mateu
Mireia
Montes Quiles
Regina
Sarmiento
Iveth Adaena
Gaspar Gorostieta
Eirini
Angeloudi
Giulia
Golini
Laura Elizabeth
Scholz Díaz
Pablo
Rodríguez Beltrán
Results
Here you can find some of our most recent highlights:
- Local variations of the stellar velocity ellipsoid - II. The effect of the bar in the inner regions of Auriga galaxies. Walo et al. 2022, MNRAS (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022MNRAS.513.4587W)
- Anisotropic satellite galaxy quenching modulated by black hole activity. Martín-Navarro et al. 2021, Nature (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021Natur.594..187M)
- Evaluating hydrodynamical simulations with green valley galaxies. Angthopo et al. 2021, MNRAS (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021MNRAS.502.3685A)
- Sub one per cent mass fractions of young stars in red massive galaxies. Salvador-Rusiñol et al. 2020, Nature Astronomy (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020NatAs...4..252S)
- Detection of young stellar populations in apparently quenched low-mass galaxies using red spectral line indices. de Lorenzo-Cáceres et al. 2020, MNRAS (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020MNRAS.498.1002D)
Scientific activity
Related publications
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Keck spectroscopy of NGC 1052-DF9: stellar populations in the context of the NGC 1052 groupIn this study, we use Keck/Keck Cosmic Web Imager spectroscopy to measure the age, metallicity, and recessional velocity of NGC 1052-DF9 (DF9), a dwarf galaxy in the NGC 1052 group. We compare these properties to those of two other galaxies in the group, NGC 1052-DF2 and NGC 1052-DF4, which have low dark matter content. The three galaxies areGannon, Jonah S. et al.
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Euclid preparation. XXVI. The Euclid Morphology Challenge: Towards structural parameters for billions of galaxiesThe various Euclid imaging surveys will become a reference for studies of galaxy morphology by delivering imaging over an unprecedented area of 15 000 square degrees with high spatial resolution. In order to understand the capabilities of measuring morphologies from Euclid-detected galaxies and to help implement measurements in the pipeline of theEuclid Collaboration et al.
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The massive relic galaxy NGC 1277 is dark matter deficient. From dynamical models of integral-field stellar kinematics out to five effective radiiAccording to the Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmology, present-day galaxies with stellar masses M ⋆ > 10 11 M ⊙ should contain a sizable fraction of dark matter within their stellar body. Models indicate that in massive early-type galaxies (ETGs) with M ⋆ ≈ 1.5 × 10 11 M ⊙, dark matter should account for ∼15% of the dynamical mass within oneComerón, Sébastien et al.
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Spectroscopic Confirmation of CEERS NIRCam-selected Galaxies at z ≃ 8-10We present JWST/NIRSpec prism spectroscopy of seven galaxies selected from Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey NIRCam imaging with photometric redshifts z phot > 8. We measure emission line redshifts of z = 7.65 and 8.64 for two galaxies. For two other sources without securely detected emission lines we measure $z={9.77}_{-0.29}^{Arrabal Haro, Pablo et al.
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Effect of the initial mass function on the dynamical SMBH mass estimate in the nucleated early-type galaxy FCC 47Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and nuclear star clusters (NSCs) co-exist in many galaxies. While the formation history of the black hole is essentially lost, NSCs preserve their evolutionary history imprinted onto their stellar populations and kinematics. Studying SMBHs and NSCs in tandem might help us to ultimately reveal the build-up of galaxyThater, Sabine et al.
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ERGO-ML: towards a robust machine learning model for inferring the fraction of accreted stars in galaxies from integral-field spectroscopic mapsQuantifying the contribution of mergers to the stellar mass of galaxies is key for constraining the mechanisms of galaxy assembly across cosmic time. However, the mapping between observable galaxy properties and merger histories is not trivial: cosmological galaxy simulations are the only tools we have for calibration. We study the robustness of aAngeloudi, Eirini et al.
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CEERS Key Paper. VI. JWST/MIRI Uncovers a Large Population of Obscured AGN at High RedshiftsMid-infrared (mid-IR) observations are powerful in identifying heavily obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) that have weak emission in other wavelengths. Data from the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on board the James Webb Space Telescope provides an excellent opportunity to perform such studies. We take advantage of the MIRI imaging data from theYang, G. et al.
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sMILES SSPs: a library of semi-empirical MILES stellar population models with variable [α/Fe] abundancesWe present a new library of semi-empirical stellar population models that are based on the empirical MILES and semi-empirical sMILES stellar libraries. The models span a large range of age and metallicity, in addition to an [α/Fe] coverage from -0.2 to +0.6 dex, at MILES resolution (FWHM = $2.5\,$ Å) and wavelength coverage ($3540.5-7409.6\,$ Å)Knowles, Adam T. et al.
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Uncertainty-aware blob detection with an application to integrated-light stellar population recoveriesContext. Blob detection is a common problem in astronomy. One example is in stellar population modelling, where the distribution of stellar ages and metallicities in a galaxy is inferred from observations. In this context, blobs may correspond to stars born in situ versus those accreted from satellites, and the task of blob detection is toParzer, Fabian et al.
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NGC 1436: the making of a lenticular galaxy in the Fornax ClusterWe study the evolutionary path of the Fornax Cluster galaxy NGC 1436, which is known to be currently transitioning from a spiral into a lenticular morphology. This galaxy hosts an inner star-forming disc and an outer quiescent disc, and we analyse data from the MeerKAT Fornax Survey, ALMA, and the Fornax 3D survey to study the interstellar mediumLoni, Alessandro et al.
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The entropy of galaxy spectra: how much information is encoded?The inverse problem of extracting the stellar population content of galaxy spectra is analysed here from a basic standpoint based on information theory. By interpreting spectra as probability distribution functions, we find that galaxy spectra have high entropy, thus leading to a rather low effective information content. The highest variation inFerreras, Ignacio et al.
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12023 -
The MAGPI Survey: impact of environment on the total internal mass distribution of galaxies in the last 5 GyrWe investigate the impact of environment on the internal mass distribution of galaxies using the Middle Ages Galaxy Properties with Integral field spectroscopy (MAGPI) survey. We use 2D resolved stellar kinematics to construct Jeans dynamical models for galaxies at mean redshift z ~ 0.3, corresponding to a lookback time of 3-4 Gyr. The internalDerkenne, Caro et al.
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Identification of tidal features in deep optical galaxy images with convolutional neural networksInteractions between galaxies leave distinguishable imprints in the form of tidal features, which hold important clues about their mass assembly. Unfortunately, these structures are difficult to detect because they are low surface brightness features, so deep observations are needed. Upcoming surveys promise several orders of magnitude increase inDomínguez Sánchez, H. et al.
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52023 -
MaNGIA: 10 000 mock galaxies for stellar population analysisContext. Modern astronomical observations give unprecedented access to the physical properties of nearby galaxies, including spatially resolved stellar populations. However, observations can only give a present-day view of the Universe, whereas cosmological simulations give access to the past record of the processes that galaxies have experiencedSarmiento, Regina et al.
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52023 -
Chemical characterisation of the X-shooter Spectral Library (XSL): [Mg/Fe] and [Ca/Fe] abundancesContext. The X-shooter Spectral Library (XSL) is a large empirical stellar library used as a benchmark for the development of stellar population models. The inclusion of α-element abundances is crucial to disentangling the chemical evolution of any stellar system. Aims: The aim of this paper is to provide a catalogue of high-precision, accurateSantos-Peral, P. et al.
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The SAMI-Fornax Dwarfs Survey - III. Evolution of [α/Fe] in dwarfs, from Galaxy Clusters to the Local GroupUsing very deep, high spectral resolution data from the SAMI Integral Field Spectrograph, we study the stellar population properties of a sample of dwarf galaxies in the Fornax Cluster, down to a stellar mass of 10 7 M ⊙, which has never been done outside the Local Group. We use full spectral fitting to obtain stellar population parameters. AddingRomero-Gómez, J. et al.
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CEERS Key Paper. IV. A Triality in the Nature of HST-dark GalaxiesThe new capabilities that JWST offers in the near- and mid-infrared (IR) are used to investigate in unprecedented detail the nature of optical/near-IR-faint, mid-IR-bright sources, with HST-dark galaxies among them. We gather JWST data from the CEERS survey in the Extended Groth Strip, jointly with HST data, and analyze spatially resolved opticalPérez-González, Pablo G. et al.
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The Fornax3D project: Environmental effects on the assembly of dynamically cold disks in Fornax cluster galaxiesWe apply a population-orbit superposition metho1d to 16 galaxies in the Fornax cluster observed with MUSE/VLT in the context of the Fornax3D project. By fitting the luminosity distribution, stellar kinematics, and age and metallicity maps simultaneously, we obtained the internal stellar orbit distribution, as well as the age and metallicityDing, Y. et al.
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Expectations of the Size Evolution of Massive Galaxies at 3 ≤ z ≤ 6 from the TNG50 Simulation: The CEERS/JWST ViewWe present a catalog of about 25,000 images of massive (M ⋆ ≥ 10 9 M ⊙) galaxies at redshifts 3 ≤ z ≤ 6 from the TNG50 cosmological simulation, tailored for observations at multiple wavelengths carried out with JWST. The synthetic images were created with the SKIRT radiative transfer code, including the effects of dust attenuation and scatteringCostantin, Luca et al.
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MIGHTEE-H I: possible interactions with the galaxy NGC 895The transformation and evolution of a galaxy is strongly influenced by interactions with its environment. Neutral hydrogen (H I) is an excellent way to trace these interactions. Here, we present H I observations of the spiral galaxy NGC 895, which was previously thought to be isolated. High-sensitivity H I observations from the MeerKAT large surveyNamumba, B. et al.
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