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We present GECKOS (Generalising Edge-on galaxies and their Chemical bimodalities, Kinematics, and Outflows out to Solar environments), a new ESO VLT/MUSE large program. The main aim of GECKOS is to reveal the variation in key physical processes of disk formation by connecting Galactic Archaeology with integral field spectroscopic observations of nearby galaxies. Edge-on galaxies are ideal for this task: they allow us to disentangle the assembly history imprinted in thick disks and provide the greatest insights into outflows. The GECKOS sample of 35 nearby edge-on disk galaxies is designed to trace the assembly histories and properties of galaxies across a large range of star formation rates, bulge-to-total ratios, and boxy and non-boxy bulges. GECKOS will deliver spatially resolved measurements of stellar abundances, ages, and kinematics, as well as ionised gas metallicities, ionisation param- eters, pressure, and inflow and outflow kinematics; all key parameters for building a complete chemodynamical picture of disk galaxies. With these data, we aim to extend Galactic analysis methods to the wider galaxy population, reaping the benefits of detailed Milky Way studies, while probing the diverse mechanisms of galaxy evolution.

We build a theoretical picture of how the light from galaxies evolves across cosmic time. In particular, we predict the evolution of the galaxy spectral energy distribution (SED) by carefully integrating the star formation and metal enrichment histories of semi-analytic model (SAM) galaxies and combining these with stellar population synthesis models which we call mentari. Our SAM combines prescriptions to model the interplay between gas accretion, star formation, feedback process, and chemical enrichment in galaxy evolution. From this, the SED of any simulated galaxy at any point in its history can be constructed and compared with telescope data to reverse engineer the various physical processes that may have led to a particular set of observations. The synthetic SEDs of millions of simulated galaxies from mentari can cover wavelengths from the far UV to infrared, and thus can tell a near complete story of the history of galaxy evolution.

In the wide-field Panoramic Imaging Survey of Centaurus and Sculptor (PISCeS), we investigate the resolved stellar halos of two nearby galaxies (the elliptical Centaurus A and the spiral Sculptor, D ~ 3.7 Mpc) out to a projected galactocentric radius of 150 kpc with Magellan/Megacam. The survey has led to the discovery of ~20 faint satellites to date, plus prominent streams and substructures in two environments that are substantially different from the Local Group, i.e. the Centaurus A group dominated by an elliptical and the loose Sculptor group of galaxies. These discoveries clearly attest to the importance of past and ongoing accretion processes in shaping the halos of these nearby galaxies, and provide the first census of their satellite systems down to an unprecedented MV < −8. The detailed characterization of the stellar content, shape and gradients in the extended halos of Sculptor, Centaurus A, and their dwarf satellites provides key constraints on theoretical models of galaxy formation and evolution.

We present a simple, physically-motivated model to interpret consistently the emission from galaxies at ultraviolet, optical and infrared wavelengths. We combine this model with a Bayesian method to obtain robust statistical constraints on key parameters describing the stellar content, star formation activity and dust content of galaxies. Our model is now publicly available via a user-friendly code package, MAGPHYS at www.iap.fr/magphys. We present an application of this model to interpret a sample of ~1400 local (z<0.5) galaxies from the H-ATLAS survey. We find that, for these galaxies, the diffuse interstellar medium, powered mainly by stars older than 10 Myr, accounts for about half the total infrared luminosity. We discuss the implications of this result to the use of star formation rate indicators based on total infrared luminosity.

We present new spectro-photometric NIR observations of 16 post-starburst galaxies especially designed to test for the presence of strong carbon features of thermally pulsing AGB (TP-AGB) stars, as predicted by recent models of stellar population synthesis. Selection based on clear spectroscopic optical features indicating the strong predominance of stellar populations with ages between 0.5 and 1.5 Gyr and redshift around 0.2 allows us to probe the spectral region that is most affected by the carbon features of TP-AGB stars (unaccessible from the ground for z ~ 0 galaxies) in the evolutionary phase when their impact on the IR luminosity is maximum. Nevertheless, none of the observed galaxies display such features. Moreover the NIR fluxes relative to optical are consistent with those predicted by the original Bruzual & Charlot (2003) models, where the impact of TP-AGB stars is much lower than has been recently advocated.

We exploit stellar population models of absorption features in the ultraviolet to assess their power in determining the age of the stellar population in galaxies. We focus in particular on features that can differentiate between an old UV-bright population, contributing to the UV upturn, and a young population due to recent star formation. We use a system of 8 indices between 2200 - 3200Å, tracing several chemical elements including Mg and Fe. We apply these models to a large sample of z ~ 0.6 massive galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) - III / Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) to derive the ages of the UV-bright populations. We find a subset of indices to be non-degenerate between old and young UV ages allowing us to find evidence for old stars contributing to the UV, rather than new star formation. We find up to 84% of our working sample (274,661 galaxies) to contain a contribution from old UV-bright stars. Those found to have higher contributing mass fractions being on average more massive and redder then those with lower mass fractions.

This year 2018 has great historical and current significance for stellar spectral classification. Two hundred years ago in Reggio Emilia, Italy, was born Angelo Secchi, a pioneer of observing and classifying the spectra of stars. At the beginning of the IAU, almost a hundred years ago, one of its original Commissions was entitled the Spectral Classification of Stars, from which was generated Commission 45, Spectral Classification and Multi-band Colour Indices. And seventy-five years ago, was published the system-changing MKK, An Atlas of Stellar Spectra. Through this necessarily brief, historical view we shall recall how spectral classification, supported internationally by the IAU, continually updated its techniques, while remaining anchored to standards. This has ensured that the MK classification process stays very relevant to the initial characterizing of stars in the 21st century era of large spectral surveys.

We present a detailed study of stellar line indices along the bar region for a sample of six early-type galaxies. We find positive gradients within the bar region in the metal indices in four of the six galaxies, and opposite trends in the other two. These latter two galaxies are classified as SAB and they present exponential bar light profiles. For all the galaxies, we find a positive gradient in the Balmer indices. There is a clear correlation between the position of morphological features inside the bar region with changes in the slope and value of the indices, which indicate, using stellar population analysis, changes in the stellar population. Therefore, it seems that the bar regions show a gradient in both age and metallicity, changing radially to younger and more metal rich populations for all the galaxies except for those two with exponential profiles. This is the first time such an analysis of the stellar populations in bars has been performed. The radial distribution of the indices is related to the star formation history of the bar, understanding these trends will help us to understand how bars are formed and how they evolve.

The IMF UNIVERSALITY HYPOTHESIS cannot be discarded despite the existence of the CLUSTER IMF THEOREM. This means that the currently existing star-formation theory fails to describe the stellar outcome. The IGIMF THEOREM, however, predicts a variation of galaxy-wide IMFs in dependence of the galaxy's star-formation rate even if the IMF UNIVERSALITY HYPOTHESIS is valid. Taking indirect evidence from chemical evolution studies and the IGIMF THEOREM into account, it follows, however, that bulges and elliptical galaxies may have had a top-heavy IMF. A break-down of the IMF UNIVERSALITY THEOREM would thus be evident in extreme galaxy-wide (≳ 10 M⊙yr) star-formation events.

The recent GAIA DR2 measurements of distances to galactic novae have allowed to re-analyse some properties of nova populations in the Milky Way and in external galaxies on new and more solid empirical bases. In some cases, we have been able to confirm results previously obtained, such as the concept of nova populations into two classes of objects, that is disk and bulge novae and their link with the Tololo spectroscopic classification in Fe II and He/N novae. The recent and robust estimates of nova rates in the Magellanic Clouds galaxies provided by the OGLE team have confirmed the dependence of the normalized nova rate (i.e., the nova rate per unit of luminosity of the host galaxy) with the colors and/or class of luminosity of the parent galaxies. The nova rates in the Milky Way and in external galaxies have been collected from literature and critically discussed. They are the necessary ingredient to asses the contribution of novae to the nucleosynthesis of the respective host galaxies, particularly to explain the origin of the overabundance of lithium observed in young stellar populations. A direct comparison between distances obtained via GAIA DR2 and maximum magnitude vs. rate of decline (MMRD) relationship points out that the MMRD can provide distances with an uncertainty better than 30%. Multiwavelength observations of novae along the whole electromagnetic spectrum, from radio to gamma rays, have revealed that novae undergo a complex evolution characterized by several emission phases and a non-spherical geometry for the nova ejecta.