NIRS0S (Near-IR S0 galaxy Survey), is a K-band survey of ~ 200 early-type disk galaxies, mainly S0s, 2-3 mag deeper than the 2Micron All Sky Survey. In depth morphological analysis was done, in which multi-component structural decompositions played an important role. Possible implications to internal dynamical galaxy evolution were discussed. S0s were suggested to be former spirals in which star formation has ceased, forming a parallel sequence with spirals (see Fig. 1). If that evolution is faster among the brighter galaxies, the observed magnitude difference between the barred and non-barred S0s could be understood. Bars are suggested to play a critical role in such evolution. For example, the inner lenses in the bright non-barred S0s can be explained as former barlenses (inner parts of bars), in which the elongated bar component has dissolved. We suggest that the last destructive merger event happened at a fairly large redshift.

Near-IR observations are considered to give an extinction-free view of the old stellar population in galaxies, thus ideal for the analysis of gravitational torques associated with bar and spiral structures. In the past, H or Ks band data have often been employed (Buta et al. 2010, Salo et al. 2010). S4G (Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies, Sheth et al. 2010) provides new deep homogenious 3.6 and 4.5 micron data for over 2000 nearby galaxies, allowing to probe the bar and spiral properties over a wide range of morphological types and environments. Here we compare the Fourier-amplitude profiles derived from S4G data for about 50 early-type disk galaxies (SO and S0/a), with those from NIRSOS Ks data (Near-IR S0 Survey, Laurikainen et al. 2011). We also make detailed Ks-3.6 micron color maps. Interestingly, nuclear ring features stand up very clearly in these maps, indicating significantly different contributions of recent star formation in the Ks and 3.6 micron bands. However, the effect of these detailed differences on the overall force profiles is fairly small: this confirms that the S4G data can be confidently used for estimation of bar torques.

Early-type galaxies (ETGs) have been characterized as objects dominated by old stellar populations, containing little or no cold gas and dust, and thus, non-existent star formation. However, there are indications in the literature that some ETGs deviate from this: some have significant amounts of gas and dust, are forming stars, and/or display stellar substructures (tidal features, disks or shells, e.g., Kormendy et al. 1997, Rix, Carollo & Freeman 1999). A better understanding of the evolution of ETGs and the details of their “peculiarities” is critical to properly constrain models of galaxy formation. We present preliminary results on a photometric analysis of substructures in local ETGs, based on 3.6μm IRAC images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G; Sheth et al. 2010), which comprises one of the largest mid-IR photometric surveys of the local Universe. Relatively unhindered by extinction and dominated by the low-mass stellar populations that dominate a galaxy's stellar mass budget, the IR is the ideal waveband to trace the details of stellar structures in galaxies. Based on 2D GALFIT (Peng et al. 2002) decomposition, we find tidal features in 17% of 146 ETGs from S4G. For both the GALFIT model and the galaxy residual images, we calculate the total counts inside an annular region centered on the galaxy, where the inner radius is the effective radius of the galaxy. Assuming that a tidal feature and its host galaxy have the same mass-to-luminosity ratio (M/L), the ratio of the residual counts over model counts translates into the ratio of their stellar masses. We find that the tidal features in the majority of peculiar ETGs in our sample account for no more than 11% of the galaxy's total stellar mass. Considering that simulations (Canalizo et al. 2007) suggest an upper limit in relative stellar mass of 25% for shells resulting from a past major merger, the values we find support a merger origin. We are in the process of applying the decomposition method to GALEX UV images and optical SDSS images of these peculiar ETGs in order to characterize the underlying substructure and provide constraints on astrophysical properties such as star formation rates and stellar masses associated to these tidal features, based on broad-band SED template fitting techniques.

In our contribution we show the effects of environmental evolution on cluster and field dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs), presenting the first large-scale integral-field spectroscopic data for this galaxy class. Our sample con sists of 12 galaxies and no two of them are alike. We find that the level of rotation is not tied to flattening; we observe kinematic twists; we discover large-scale kinematically-decoupled components; we see varying gradient s in line-strength maps: from nearly flat to strongly peaked in the center. The great variety of morphological, kinematic, and stellar population parameters seen in our data supports the claim that dEs are defunct dwarf spiral/irregular galaxies and points to a formation scenario that allows for a stochastic shaping of galaxy properties. The combined influence of ram-pressure stripping and harassment fulfills these requirements, still, the exact impact of the two is not yet understood. We further investigate the properties of our sample by performing a detailed comprehensive analysis of its kinematic, dynamical, and stellar population parameters. The combined knowledge of the dynamical properties and star-formation histories, together with model predictions for different formation mechanisms, will be used to quant itatively determine the actual transformation paths for these galaxies.

What happens to dwarf galaxies as they enter the cluster potential well is one of the main unknowns in studies of galaxy evolution. Several evidence suggests that late-type galaxies enter the cluster and are transformed to dwarf early-type galaxies (dEs). We study the Virgo cluster to understand which mechanisms are involved in this transformation. We find that the dEs in the outer parts of Virgo have rotation curves with shapes and amplitudes similar to late-type galaxies of the same luminosity (Fig. 1). These dEs are rotationally supported, have disky isophotes, and younger ages than those dEs in the center of Virgo, which are pressure supported, often have boxy isophotes and are older (Fig. 1). Ram pressure stripping, thus, explains the properties of the dEs located in the outskirts of Virgo. However, the dEs in the central cluster regions, which have lost their angular momentum, must have suffered a more violent transformation. A combination of ram pressure stripping and harassment is not enough to remove the rotation and the spiral/disky structures of these galaxies. We find that on the the Faber-Jackson and the Fundamental Plane relations dEs deviate from the trends of massive elliptical galaxies towards the position of dark matter dominated systems such as the dwarf spheroidal satellites of the Milky Way and M31. Both, rotationally and pressure supported dEs, however, populate the same region in these diagrams. This indicates that dEs have a non-negligible dark matter fraction within their half light radius.

In recent years a considerable amount of new data has become available about stellar populations in the central regions of galaxies. I will discuss what stellar populations can tell us about the formation origin of bulges, and how this relates to the formation of the central regions in giant and dwarf ellipticals. In particular I will concentrate on results from integral field spectroscopy and Spitzer imaging at 3.6, 4.5 and 8 microns.

CALIFA (Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area) is a 3D spectroscopic survey of 600 nearby galaxies that we are obtaining with PPaK@3.5m at Calar Alto (Sánchez et al. 2012; Husemann et al. 2012). This pioneer survey is providing valuable clues on how the mass and metallicity grow in the different galactic spatial sub-components (“bulge” and “disk”). Processed through spectral synthesis techniques, CALIFA datacubes allow us to, for the first time, spatially resolve the star formation history of galaxies (Cid Fernandes et al. 2012). The richness of this approach is already evident from the results obtained for the first ~ 100 galaxies of the sample (Pérez et al. 2012). We have found that galaxies grow inside-out, and that the growth rate depends on a galaxy's mass. Here, we present the radial variations of physical properties sorting galaxies by their morphological type (Figure 1). We have found a good correlation between the stellar mass surface density, stellar ages and metallicities and the Hubble type, but being the the early type spirals (Sa-Sbc) the galaxies with strong negative age and metallicity gradient from the bulge to the disk.

We obtained stellar ages and metallicities via spectrum fitting for a sample of 575 bulges with spectra available from the SDSS. Using the whole sample, where galaxy stellar mass distributions for barred and unbarred galaxies are similar, we find that the distribution of bulge ages in barred galaxies shows an excess of populations younger than 4 Gyr, when compared to bulges in unbarred galaxies. KS statistics confirm that the age distributions are different with a significance of 99.94%. If we select sub-samples for which the bulge stellar mass distributions are similar for barred and unbarred galaxies, this excess vanishes for galaxies with low-mass bulges, while for more massive bulges we find a bimodal stellar age distribution for barred galaxies only, corresponding to two normal distributions with mean ages of 10.4 and 4.7 Gyr (see Fig. 1). These results lend strong support to models in which bars trigger star formation activity in the centers of galaxies. We also find twice as much AGN among barred galaxies, as compared to unbarred galaxies, for low-mass bulges. Full results are in Coelho & Gadotti (2011).

The radial profiles of the Hβ, Mg, and Fe line-strength indices are presented for a sample of eight spiral galaxies with a low surface-brightness stellar disc and a bulge. The correlations between the central values of the line-strength indices and velocity dispersion are consistent to those known for early-type galaxies and bulges of high surface-brightness galaxies. The age, metallicity, and α/Fe enhancement of the stellar populations in the bulge-dominated region are obtained using stellar population models with variable element abundance ratios. Almost all the sample bulges are characterized by a young stellar population, on-going star formation, and a solar α/Fe enhancement. Their metallicity spans from high to sub-solar values. No significant gradient in age and α/Fe enhancement is measured, whereas only in a few cases a negative metallicity gradient is found. These properties suggest that a pure dissipative collapse is not able to explain formation of all the sample bulges and that other phenomena, like mergers or acquisition events, need to be invoked. Such a picture is also supported by the lack of a correlation between the central value and gradient of the metallicity in bulges with very low metallicity. The stellar populations of the bulges hosted by low surface-brightness discs share many properties with those of high surface-brightness galaxies. Therefore, they are likely to have common formation scenarios and evolution histories. A strong interplay between bulges and discs is ruled out by the fact that in spite of being hosted by discs with extremely different properties, the bulges of low and high surface-brightness discs are remarkably similar.

The physical and chemical evolution of galaxies is intimately linked to star formation, We present evidence that molecular gas (H2) is transformed into stars more quickly in smaller and/or subsolar metallicity galaxies than in large spirals – which we consider to be equivalent to a star formation efficiency (SFE). In particular, we show that this is not due to uncertainties in the N(H2)/Ico conversion factor. Several possible reasons for the high SFE in galaxies like the nearby M33 or NGC 6822 are proposed which, separately or together, are the likely cause of the high SFE in this environment. We then try to estimate how much this could contribute to the increase in cosmic star formation rate density from z = 0 to z = 1.

Thick discs are defined to be disc-like components with a scale height larger than that of the classical discs. They are ubiquitous (Yoachim & Dalcanton 2006; Comerón et al. 2011a), they are made of mostly old and metal-poor stars and are most easily detected in close to edge-on galaxies. Their origin has been considered mysterious and several formation theories have been proposed:

• The thick disc being formed secularly by thin disc stars heated by disc overdensities such as giant molecular clouds or spiral arms (Villumsen 1985, ApJ, 290, 75) and by stars moved outwards from their original orbits by radial migration mechanisms (Schönrich & Binney 2009).

• The thick disc being formed by the heating of the thin disc by satellites (Quinn et al. 1993) and the tidal stripping of them (Abadi et al. 2003).

• The thick disc being formed fast and already thick at high redshift in an highly unstable disc. Inside that thick disc, a thin disc would form afterwards as suggested by Elemgreen & Elmegreen (2006).

• The thick disc being formed originally thick at high redshift by the merger of gas-rich protogalactic fragments and a thin disc forming afterwards within it (Brook et al. 2007).

The first mechanism is a secular evolution mechanism. The time-scale of the second one is dependent on the merger history of the main galaxy. In the two last mechanisms, the thick disc forms already thick in a short time-scale at high redshift.

Recent Milky Way studies, (see, e.g., Bovy et al. 2012), have shown indications that there is no discontinuity between the thin and the thick disc chemical and kinematic properties. Instead, those studies indicate the presence of a monotonic distribution of disc thicknesses. This would suggest a secular origin for the Milky Way thick disc.

Studies in external galaxies (Yoachim & Dalcanton 2006; Comerón et al. 2011b), have shown that low-mass disc galaxies have thick disc relative masses much larger than those found in large-mass galaxies. Because low-mass galaxies are dynamically younger than their larger counterparts, it seems difficult for their thick discs to have a secular evolution origin, but simulations show that their thick disc masses are compatible with those of a thick disc formed at high redshift.

Thus, recent studies seem to indicate that large-mass galaxies have their thick discs formed mainly due to secular evolution and that low-mass galaxies have them formed at high redshift.

Stellar populations are most useful for disentangling formation and evolution histories of galaxies. We present here results obtained using data from the GHOSTS survey ((Radburn-Smith et al., 2011) which uses HST photometry to resolve stellar populations in nearby massive disk galaxies. Using color magnitude diagrams we can distingiush stellar populations of different ages and analyse the spatial structure of each population seperately.

We have examined the vertical disk structure in six edge-on galaxies. We find a general heating of disk, i.e. larger scaleheights for older populations. The scaleheight of each population is constant over most of radial extent of each galaxy.

In massive galaxies (Vrot > 150 km/s) we clearly see a thick component (i.e. there are more stars at large distances from the plane than expected from a single disk model). These thick components consist of intermediate-aged and old stars (>1 Gyr), and the (thick) scaleheight of the old population (>4 Gyr) is significantly larger than the (thick) scaleheight of the intermediate aged (1-2 Gyr) population.

This finding argues against a rapid formation of the thick components and favors a more secular formation of these components.

According to the current co-evolution picture, most present-day galaxies experienced at least one phase of vigorous black hole (BH) activity in the past, during which a tight link between galaxy and BH gets established. While during the last two decades we have witnessed tremendous progress in the field, additional robust observational constraints are required on how galaxy and BH related at earlier times, and which mechanisms are responsible for triggering these BH growth phases. In our recent studies, we analyzed a large sample of active galactic nuclei (AGN) out to z ~ 1 from the COSMOS survey (Scoville et al. 2007), allowing us to study in detail growing BHs together with their host galaxies. In Cisternas et al. (2011b) we found that, for a sample of 32 active galaxies at z ~ 0.7, BH mass scales with total galaxy stellar mass in the same way as it does locally, at z = 0, with galactic bulge mass. I will argue that for these galaxies to obey the local relation only a disk-to-bulge stellar mass redistribution is needed, likely driven by passive secular evolution. I will also present the results from Cisternas et al. (2011a), aiming to understand the relevance of major mergers as AGN activity triggering mechanisms. By looking for merging signatures on the morphologies of 140 AGN (some examples shown in Figure 1), and comparing them with a sample of over 1200 matched inactive galaxies, we found that the merger fraction between samples is statistically the same, at roughly 15%. Together with the fact that the majority of the AGN host galaxies are disk-dominated, unlikely relics of a recent major merger, these results are the strongest evidence to date that secular evolution rather than major merging has dominated BH fueling at least since z ~ 1.

We use the Marcario Low Resolution Spectrograph (LRS) at the Hobby-Eberly-Telescope (HET) to study the kinematics of pseudobulges and classical bulges in 45 S0-Sc type galaxies in the nearby universe. Our high-resolution (instrumental σ ≈ 39 km s−1) spectra allo only to resolve the typical velocity dispersions of our targets but also to derive the h3 and h4 Gauss-Hermite moments. We demonstrate for the first time that purely kinematic diagnostics of the bulge dichotomy agree systematically with those based on Sérsic index. Low Sérsic index bulges have both increased rotational support (higher v/σ values) and on average lower central velocity dispersions. Pseudobulges have systematically shallower velocity dispersion profiles. The same correlation also holds when visual morphologies are used to diagnose bulge type. Finally, we present evidence for formerly undetected counter rotation in the two systems NGC 3945 and NGC 4736. With these, a total of 16% of the systems in or sample show signs for stellar counter rotation.

One of the scenarios for the formation of dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the Local Group proposes that the objects formed from late type dwarfs via tidal interaction with bigger galaxies such as the Milky Way and Andromeda. The scenario naturally explains the morphology-density relation observed for dwarf galaxies in the Local Group. Using N-body simulations we study the long-term tidal evolution of dwarf galaxies in the vicinity of the Milky Way. The dwarf galaxies were initially composed of stellar disks embedded in dark matter haloes of different inner density slopes including shallow ones recently obtained in N-body+hydro simulations of dwarf galaxy formation in isolation. Such progenitors were placed on five different orbits around the Milky Way and their evolution was followed for 10 Gyr. The outcome of the evolution, in terms of the mass loss, morphological transformation and randomization of stellar orbits depends very sensitively on the inner density slope of dark matter. The effects of tides are stronger for dwarfs with shallower slopes; they are more heavily stripped, in some cases down to the scale of ultra-faint satellites of the Milky Way or even dissolved completely with obvious implications for the missing satellites problem. The morphological evolution of the stellar component, from rotationally supported disks to spheroids dominated by random motions, also proceeds faster. In addition, bars which usually form at the first pericenter passage are created more easily and live longer in dwarfs with shallow dark matter density profiles on extended orbits.

I will review the secular evolution of the Milky Way disk and bulge with particular attention to the bulge and disk. Evidence for the importance of stellar migration in the Solar neighbourhood will be presented. The upcoming Gaia satellite will lead to a wealth of new data with which to explore these effects.

As an integral component of the LAMOST Experiment for Galactic Understanding and Evolution (LEGUE; Deng et al. 2012), the LAMOST Galactic anti-center spectroscopic survey (Liu et al. in preparation) will survey over three thousand square degree sky area centered on the Galactic anti-center (150d ≤ l ≤ 210d, −30d ≤ b ≤ +30d) and obtain low resolution (R ~ 1800) optical spectra for a statistically complete sample of more than three million stars down to a limiting magnitude of 18.5 in r band, distributed in a spatially contiguous area and probing a significant volume of the Galactic thin/thick disks, halo and their interface. Sample stars of the LAMOST survey of the Galactic anti-center are derived from a recently completed CCD imaging photometric survey utilizing the newly built 1.0/1.2m Schmidt Telescope at the Xuyi Station of the Purple Mountain Observatory. The Xuyi imaging survey (Yuan et al., in preparation; Zhang et al. 2012) provides high quality photometry (~2 per cent) in the SDSS g, r and i bands and astrometry (~0.1 arcsec) for about a hundred million stars down to a limiting magnitude of about 19 (10 sigma) for over six thousand square degree sky area (3h ≤ RA ≤ 9h, −10d ≤ Dec ≤ +60d) that envelopes the LAMOST spectroscopic survey area of the Galactic anti-center, plus an extension to the M 31 and M 33 region.

This Digital Sky Survey of the Galactic Anti-center (DSS-GAC) with the Xuyi Schmidt and LAMOST telescopes will yield for the first time optical photometry and spectra for millions of stars in the Galactic disk(s), the defining component of the Milky Way as a typical spiral galaxy that contains most Galactic baryonic material and angular momentum. DSS-GAC will deliver classification, extinction, radial velocity and stellar parameters (Teff, log g, [Fe/H], probably also [α/Fe], and in some cases, [C/Fe]), for each sample star. Together with the accurate proper motions and distances to be obtained with the forthcoming GAIA mission, DSS-GAC offers a unique opportunity for major breakthroughs in studies of the Galactic structure, formation and evolution. In particular, DSS-GAC will generate a huge data set to 1) study the stellar populations, chemical composition and kinematics of the thin and thick disks and their interface with the halo; 2) Understand how resilient galaxy disks are to gravitational interactions/perturbations and study the temporal and secular evolution of the disks; 3) identify tidal streams and debris of disrupted dwarfs and clusters; 4) probe the gravitational potential and dark matter distribution; 5) map the three-dimensional distribution and extinction of the interstellar medium; 6) search for rare objects (e.g. stars of peculiar chemical composition, hyper-velocity stars); and 7) ultimately advance our understanding of the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies.

Following a two-year commissioning, the LAMOST pilot survey was initiated in October, 2011 and completed in June, 2012. In total, about 370,000 spectra of 270,000 stars have been obtained for DSS-GAC, with 70 per cent of the spectra reaching a spectral S/N ratio per resolution element at 7150 Å higher than 20. The formal LAMOST DSS-GAC survey will commence in September, 2012, and is expected to complete in five years.

The frequency analysis of the orbits of halo stars and dark matter particles from a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation of a disk galaxy from the MUGS collaboration (Stinson et al. 2010) shows that even if the shape of the dark matter halo is nearly oblate, only about 50% of its orbits are on short-axis tubes, confirming a previous result: under baryonic condensation all orbit families can deform their shapes without changing orbital type (Valluri et al. 2010). Orbits of dark matter particles and halo stars are very similar reflecting their common accretion origin and the influence of baryons. Frequency maps provide a compact representation of the 6-D phase space distribution that also reveals the history of the halo (Valluri et al. 2012). The 6-D phase space coordinates for a large population of halo stars in the Milky Way that will be obtained from future surveys can be used to reconstruct the phase-space distribution function of the stellar halo. The similarity between the frequency maps of halo stars and dark matter particles (Fig. 1) implies that reconstruction of the stellar halo distribution function can reveal the phase space distribution of the unseen dark matter particles and provide evidence for secular evolution. MV is supported by NSF grant AST-0908346 and the Elizabeth Crosby grant.

We use Schwarzschild's orbit-superposition technique to construct self-consistent models of the Galactic bar. Using χ2 minimisation, we find that the best-fit Galactic bar model has a pattern speed Ωp=60 km s−1 kpc−1, disk mass Md=1.0×1011M⊙ and bar angle θbar=20° for an adopted bar mass Mbar=2×1010M⊙. The model can reproduce not only the three-dimensional and projected density distributions but also velocity and velocity dispersion data from the BRAVA survey. We also predict the proper motions in the range l=[−12°,12°], b=[−10°,10°], which appear to be higher than observations in the longitudinal direction. The model is stable within a timescale of 0.5 Gyr, but appears to deviate from steady-state on longer timescales. Our model can be further tested by future observations such as those from GAIA.