Near-field cosmology / Galactic Archaeology is the study of galaxies on a star-by-star basis. The Stars & Galaxies Research Group covers topics such as galaxy formation, the interstellar medium, stellar populations, including the first stars and the nature of dark matter. The detailed properties of individual stars (masses, ages, chemical abundances, positions and velocities) allows us to study and constrain galaxy formation at a level of detail that is impossible with integrated stellar light properties of distant galaxies.
We make use of ground- and space-based observations to study the formation and evolution of nearby Local Group galaxies (including our home the Milky Way) and their constituents : bars/bulges, discs, stellar halos, dwarf galaxies and star clusters. We use a variety of theoretical, statistical and computational modelling tools to understand how galaxies form, such as numerical simulations of galaxy formation, stellar dynamics, galactic chemical evolution and stellar evolution.
Staff : Laia Casamiquela, Paola Di Matteo, Misha Haywood, Chervin Laporte
Postdocs : Pierre Boldrini, Valeria Cerqui, Anna Parul
PhD students : Salvatore Ferrone
