Stellar Populations And Dynamics

We take advantage of the synergy between an archaeological approach, to uncover galaxies' past history from a detailed analysis of local galaxies, and a look-back approach to trace the physical properties of galaxy populations at different redshifts, with the ultimate aim of connecting progenitors and descendants. Specifically, our group is engaged in studies of:

• Galaxy stellar populations and abundances: scaling relations and evolution of their physical properties; Star Formation Histories (based on in-house stellar population synthesis models) and chemical evolution of both quiescent and star-forming galaxies from the local Universe up to intermediate/high redshift using deep spectroscopic data (SDSS, WEAVE, LEGA-C, VANDELS, MOONS).

• Passive and compact galaxies over cosmic time: structure, dynamics and stellar populations from the local Universe to high redshift using deep high-resolution spectroscopic data (XShooter, INSPIRE) and high-resolution imaging (HST, SOUL, MAVIS, ERIS).

• Nearby galaxies: integral-field spectroscopy to study chemical enrichment, physical properties and dynamics of stellar populations and ionised gas (CALIFA, MAGNUM, MaNGA) from dwarfs, to spiral galaxies, to early-type galaxies.

• Stellar Archaeology and Near-Field cosmology: to unveil the properties of the first stars and the assembly of the first galaxies by catching the stellar fossils from the early Universe in our Galactic neighbourhood (ERC funded project NEFERTITI).

• Galaxy dynamics: to test cosmological models by tracing the distribution of dark matter through its gravitational effects (SPARC), to understand the past and future merging history of the Local Group.