The chemical evolution of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars depends greatly on the input physics (e.g., mass loss recipe, convective model). Variations in the hot bottom burning (HBB) strength, third dredge-up (TDU) efficiency and AGB evolutionary timescale are among the main consequences of adopting different input physics. The ATON evolutionary

We investigate the influence of interactions on the star formation by studying a sample of almost 1500 of the nearest galaxies, all within a distance of ~45 Mpc. We define the massive star formation rate (SFR), as measured from far-IR emission, and the specific star formation rate (SSFR), which is the former quantity normalized by the stellar mass

We have observed 3 pairs of interacting galaxies (the Antennae, Arp 236, and NGC 1614) using the Fabry-Perot interferometer GHαFaS (Galaxy Hα Fabry-Perot system) on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma. We have extracted the physical properties (sizes, Hα luminosity and velocity

The short transition phase between asymptotic giant branch stars (AGB; when circumstellar envelopes rich in small organic molecules are efficiently created) and planetary nebulae (PNe) represents a most active phase of molecular synthesis. Different complex organic molecules - e.g., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and fullerenes - have been

The use of red colour as the basis for selecting candidate high redshift dusty galaxies from surveys made with Herschel has proved highly successful. The highest redshift such object, HFLS3, lies at z = 6.34 and numerous other sources have been found. Spectroscopic followup confirms that most of these lie at z > 4. These sources are found in such

Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars represent one of the main stellar sources for production of dust in the Universe. We provide a description of the formation and growth of dust particles in the circumstellar envelope of AGBs, starting from detailed calculations of the AGB evolutionary phase. We use stellar population synthesis to interpret the