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

The SAMI-Fornax Dwarfs Survey - III. Evolution of [α/Fe] in dwarfs, from Galaxy Clusters to the Local Group 2023MNRAS.522..130R
CEERS Key Paper. IV. A Triality in the Nature of HST-dark Galaxies 2023ApJ...946L..16P
The Fornax3D project: Environmental effects on the assembly of dynamically cold disks in Fornax cluster galaxies 2023A&A...672A..84D
Expectations of the Size Evolution of Massive Galaxies at 3 ≤ z ≤ 6 from the TNG50 Simulation: The CEERS/JWST View 2023ApJ...946...71C
MIGHTEE-H I: possible interactions with the galaxy NGC 895 2023MNRAS.521.5177N
WEAVE-StePS: A stellar population survey using WEAVE at WHT 2023A&A...672A..87I
CEERS Key Paper. II. A First Look at the Resolved Host Properties of AGN at 3 < z < 5 with JWST 2023ApJ...946L..14K
CEERS Key Paper. I. An Early Look into the First 500 Myr of Galaxy Formation with JWST 2023ApJ...946L..13F
INSPIRE: INvestigating Stellar Population In RElics. III. Second data release (DR2): testing the systematics on the stellar velocity dispersion 2023A&A...672A..17D
CEERS Key Paper. III. The Diversity of Galaxy Structure and Morphology at z = 3-9 with JWST 2023ApJ...946L..15K
Euclid preparation. XXV. The Euclid Morphology Challenge: Towards model-fitting photometry for billions of galaxies 2023A&A...671A.101E
INSPIRE: INvestigating Stellar Population In RElics - IV. The initial mass function slope in relics 2023MNRAS.521.1408M
The Physical Conditions of Emission-line Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn from JWST/NIRSpec Spectroscopy in the SMACS 0723 Early Release Observations 2023ApJ...945...35T
A new method for age-dating the formation of bars in disc galaxies. The TIMER view on NGC1433's old bar and the inside-out growth of its nuclear disc 2023A&A...671A...8D
First Look at z > 1 Bars in the Rest-frame Near-infrared with JWST Early CEERS Imaging 2023ApJ...945L..10G
The vertical structure of the spiral galaxy NGC 3501: first stages of the formation of a thin metal-rich disc 2023MNRAS.520.3066S
Exploring the stellar populations of backsplash galaxies 2023MNRAS.519.4884F
The origin of stars in the inner 500 parsecs in TNG50 galaxies 2023MNRAS.519.5202B
The Dawes Review 10: The impact of deep learning for the analysis of galaxy surveys 2023PASA...40....1H
ERGO-ML I: inferring the assembly histories of IllustrisTNG galaxies from integral observable properties via invertible neural networks 2023MNRAS.519.2199E
Keck spectroscopy of the coma cluster ultra-diffuse galaxy Y358: dynamical mass in a wider context 2023MNRAS.518.3653G
Low-density star cluster formation: discovery of a young faint fuzzy on the outskirts of the low-mass spiral galaxy NGC 247 2023MNRAS.518.3164R
Lessons learned from the two largest Galaxy morphological classification catalogues built by convolutional neural networks 2023MNRAS.518.2794C
The dark side of galaxy stellar populations - II. The dependence of star-formation histories on halo mass and on the scatter of the main sequence 2023MNRAS.518.6325S
A New Era of Intracluster Light Studies with JWST 2022ApJ...940L..51M
The survival of stellar discs in Fornax-like environments, from TNG50 to real galaxies 2022MNRAS.517.5992G
EMIR, the near-infrared camera and multi-object spectrograph for the GTC. EMIR at GTC 2022A&A...667A.107G
The SAMI-Fornax Dwarfs Survey - II. The Stellar Mass Fundamental Plane and the dark matter fraction of dwarf galaxies 2022MNRAS.517.4714E
The edges of galaxies: Tracing the limits of star formation 2022A&A...667A..87C
Non-Gaussianity of optical emission lines in SDSS star-forming galaxies and its implications on galactic outflows 2022PASA...39...54Y
The stellar populations of quiescent ultra-diffuse galaxies from optical to mid-infrared spectral energy distribution fitting 2022MNRAS.517.2231B
On the accretion of a new group of galaxies on to Virgo - II. The effect of pre-processing on the stellar population content of dEs 2022MNRAS.515.4622B
Non-solar abundance ratios trends of dEs in the Fornax Cluster using newly defined high-resolution indices 2022MNRAS.515.3472S
The Fornax3D project: Discovery of ancient massive merger events in the Fornax cluster galaxies NGC 1380 and NGC 1427 2022A&A...664A.115Z
Lessons from the massive relic NGC 1277: Remaining in situstar formation in the cores of massive galaxies 2022MNRAS.515.4514S
Fornax3D project: Assembly history of massive early-type galaxies in the Fornax cluster from deep imaging and integral field spectroscopy 2022A&A...663A.135S
The relic galaxy NGC 1277 rules out intermediate-age stellar populations origin of CO-strong absorptions in massive early-type galaxies 2022MNRAS.515L..56E
Testing the role of AGN on the star formation and metal enrichment of 'twin galaxies' 2022MNRAS.515..378A
The black hole population in low-mass galaxies in large-scale cosmological simulations 2022MNRAS.514.4912H
The Fornax3D project: intrinsic correlations between orbital properties and the stellar initial mass function 2022MNRAS.514.3660P
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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