Red Nugget galaxies found at high-z have analogues in the Local Universe which are called relic galaxies. Because of their proximity to Earth, the relics allow a more detailed analysis of their properties and can help us understand the formation of massive early-type galaxies, since Red Nuggets could be their first phase of formation. The main goal of this work is to characterize the structure and morphology of candidates and confirmed relic galaxies in the Local Universe to further search for similar objects observationally and within cosmological simulations.

Red Geysers are quiescent galaxies that show a bi-polar outflow, but the mechanism that produces this outflow is still unclear. Using MaNGA data, we find that Red Geysers correspond to ∼1.6% of the sample of galaxies already observed by MaNGA. About ∼16% of the Red Geysers show clear evidence of Active Galactic Nuclei, as revealed by emission-line ratios.

Since the advent of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), more attention has been paid on the ≲100 pc scale circumnuclear disk (CND) to reveal feeding and feedback processes of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). By using cold molecular CO and atomic C0 emission line observations, we have revealed that there are multi-component gas dynamical flows around the AGN of the Circinus galaxy, which may explain the physical origin of the AGN torus. In the luminous Seyfert galaxy NGC 7469, we found that [CI](1–0) line is extraordinary bright relative to CO lines (for example J 2−1), manifesting the physical/chemical influence of the AGN on the surrounding gas in the form of X-ray dominated region (XDR).

We serendipitously found an intriguing Extended Emission Line Region (EELR) near the quiescent and massive early-type Mrk 1172, with a projected extension of approximately 14 × 14 kpc. Its irregular shape, high gas content, strong emission lines and proximity to an isolated possible faded quasar raise questions about the ionization of this gas and the nature of this object. Analyzing the stellar population in both objects we observe that the EELR has a dominance of young-intermediate and intermediate stellar populations (200 Myr < t < 1 Gyr) with significant star formation activity, while Mrk 1172 is dominated by old stellar population (t > 5 Gyr). BPT diagnostic diagrams indicate that the gas in the EELR is photoionized by hot massive stars rather than by a hard radiation field or by shocks. Further analysis on abundances of the gas and its kinematics shall be performed to better comprehend the nature of this object and how it is interacting with Mrk 1172.

Observations at high redshift reveal that a population of massive, quiescent galaxies (called red nuggets) already existed 10 Gyr ago. These objects undergo a significant size evolution over time, likely due to minor mergers. In this work we present an analysis of local massive compact galaxies to assess if their properties are consistent with what is expected for unevolved red nuggets (relic galaxies). Using integral field spectroscopy (IFS) data from the MaNGA survey from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we characterized the kinematics and properties of stellar populations of massive compact galaxies, and find that these objects exhibit, on average, a higher rotational support than a control sample of average sized early-type galaxies. This is in agreement with a scenario in which these objects have a quiet accretion history, rendering them candidates for relic galaxies.

Galaxy morphologies reflect the shapes of galaxies and their structural components, such as bulges, discs, bars, spiral arms, etc. The detailed knowledge of the morphology of a galaxy provides understanding of the physics behind its evolution, since the time of its formation, including interaction processes and influence of the environment. Thus, the more precisely we can describe a galaxy structure, the more we may understand about its formation and evolution. We present a method that measures curvature, using images, to describe galaxy structure and to infer the morphology of each component of a galaxy. We also include some preliminary results of curvature measurements for galaxies of the Southern Photometric Local Universe Survey (S-PLUS) DR1 data release and for jellyfish galaxies of the Omega Survey. We find that the median of the curvature parameter and the integrated area under the curvature give us clues on the morphology of a galaxy.

Dark matter bars are structures that may form inside dark matter haloes of barred galaxies. Haloes can depart from sphericity and also be subject to some spin. The latter is known to have profound impacts on the evolution of both stellar and DM bars, such as stronger dynamical instabilities, more violent vertical bucklings and dissolution or impairment of stellar bar growth. On the other hand, dark matter bars of spherical haloes become initially stronger in the presence of spin. In this study, we add spin to triaxial halos in order to quantify and compare the strength of their bars. Using N-body simulations, we find that spin accelerates main instabilities and strengthens the halo bars, although their final strength depends only on triaxiality. The most triaxial halo barely forms a halo bar, showing that flattening opposes to DM bar strengthening and indicating that there is a limit on how flattened the parent structure can be.

We present Gemini Near-Infrared Integral-Field Spectrograph (NIFS) observations of the inner 660 × 660 pc2 of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1125, which reveals that the emission-line profiles present two kinematic components: a narrow one (σ < 150 km s−1) due to emission of the gas in the disk and a broad component (σ > 150 km s−1) produced by a bipolar outflow, perpendicular to the galaxy’s disk.

We present the first results of the Deep Integral Field Spectroscopy View of Nuclei of Galaxies (DIVING3D) survey, obtained from the analysis of the nuclear emission-line spectra of a sub-sample we call mini-DIVING3D, including all southern galaxies with B < 11.2 and |b| >15°. In comparison with previous studies, very few galaxies were classified as Transition objects. A possible explanation is that at least part of the Transition objects are composite systems, with a central low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) contaminated by the emission from circumnuclear H II regions. The high spatial resolution of the DIVING3D survey allowed us to isolate the nuclear emission from circumnuclear contaminations, reducing the number of Transition objects.

In this work we derive stellar archaeology and kinematics of the central 400 pc of NGC 5643. The star formation history (SFH) reveals nuclear contribution of stellar populations older (20% older than 3.5 Gyr) and younger (60% younger than 320 Myr) as compared to the circumnuclear region. The [OIII] 5007 Å kinematics reveals the eastern ionization cone with an outflow (−60 km/s ⩽ v ⩽ 120 km/s).

In this work, we present preliminary results regarding the nuclear emission lines of a statistically complete sample of 56 early-type galaxies that are part of the Deep Integral Field Spectroscopy View of Nuclei of Galaxies (DIVING3D) Project. All early type galaxies (ETGs) were observed with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph Integral Field Unit (GMOS-IFU) installed on the Gemini South Telescope. We detected emission lines in 93% of the sample, mostly low-ionization nuclear emission-line region galaxies (LINERs). We did not find Transition Objects nor H II regions in the sample. Type 1 objects are seen in ∼23% of the galaxies.

We review some of our recent results about the Radial Acceleration Relation (RAR) and its interpretation as either a fundamental or an emergent law. The former interpretation is in agreement with a class of modified gravity theories that dismiss the need for dark matter in galaxies (MOND in particular). Our most recent analysis, which includes refinements on the priors and the Bayesian test for compatibility between the posteriors, confirms that the hypothesis of a fundamental RAR is rejected at more than 5σ from the very same data that was used to infer the RAR.

We present a spectral atlas of 70 type-I AGN with the wavelength ranging 0.4–2.5 μm. For 37 sources, this is the first report of NIR spectroscopy in literature. The sample was constructed to study narrow line Seyfert 1 and quasars, with a large range of line widths (800 km s−1 < FWHM < 4000 km s−1) and Fe II intensities (0.2 < R4570 < 2.8). This work presents partial results of an ongoing project that has the objective of modeling the continuum emission and emission lines in order to derive the physics driven the Eigenvector 1 through a panchromatic spectral analysis, with emphasis on strong to super-strong Fe ii emitters. Our results show that hot dust near the sublimation temperature is necessary to explain the 1μm break of the power law component of the continuum. We estimated the hot dust mass and found a weak or absent correlation with the Fe II intensity. Moreover, we found that low ionisation ions are formed in an outer region of the BLR.

Nuclear rings are excellent laboratories to study star formation (SF) under extreme conditions. We compiled a sample of 9 galaxies that exhibit bright nuclear rings at 3-33 GHz radio continuum observed with the Jansky Very Large Array, of which 5 are normal star-forming galaxies and 4 are Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs). Using high frequency radio continuum as an extinction-free tracer of SF, we estimated the size and star formation rate of each nuclear ring and a total of 37 individual circumnuclear star-forming regions. Our results show that majority of the SF in the sample LIRGs take place in their nuclear rings, and circumnuclear SF in local LIRGs are much more spatially concentrated compared to those in the local normal galaxies and previously studied nuclear and extra-nuclear SF in normal galaxies at both low and high redshifts.

We present recent results from our MAGNUM survey of nearby active galactic nuclei (AGN), which exploits observations from the optical/near-IR integral field spectrograph MUSE at VLT. We detect strongly enhanced line widths in emission line maps of four galaxies perpendicularly to their low-power jets and AGN ionisation cones, indicative of turbulent/outflowing material. The observation of a similar phenomenon in other works suggests that it originates from an interaction mechanism between the jet and the galaxy disc through which it propagates.

. Recent works have shown that early-type galaxies (ETGs) are much more complex than early studies suggested. We present early results from a combined analysis of optical spectra and ultraviolet photometry for a sample of 3453 red sequence galaxies in at z < 0.1 that are classified as elliptical by Galaxy Zoo. By measuring the Gini index of the star-formation histories derived by starlight, we investigate the complexity of the mixture of stellar populations required to describe ETGs in our sample. When fitting only optical spectra, starlight assigns more or less the same mixture of stellar populations to all ETGs, while the addition of UV data unveils a bimodallity in the star-formation histories of these galaxies. We find evidence for stellar populations younger than 1 Gyr in 17 per cent of our sample, indicating that some galaxies do not stay permanently quenched after reaching the red sequence.

We investigate the stellar populations and ionised gas properties of a sample of central spheroidal galaxies in order to better constrain their history of star formation and gas excitation mechanism. We select galaxies from Spheroids Panchromatic Investigation in Different Environmental Regions (SPIDER) catalogue and separate these galaxies in different regimes of halo and galaxy mass. To characterise the stellar population properties of these galaxies we use the stellar population synthesis method with the Starlight code, and the presence of ionised gas is identified by measurements of the Hα equivalent width. We analyse how these properties behave as a function of the galaxy stellar mass and the parent halo mass. A trend is observed in the sense of increased ionised gas emission for low-mass centrals in high-mass halos. We interpret this trend in a scenario of intracluster medium (ICM) cooling versus active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback in a Bondi accretion context.