We employ optical spectroscopy from the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) combined with X-ray and radio data to study the highly-ionized gas (HIG) phase of the feedback in a sample of five local nearby Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Thanks to the superb field of view and sensitivity of MUSE, we found that the HIG, traced by the coronal line [Fe vii] λ6089, extends to scales not seen before, from 700 pc in Circinus and up to ∼2 kpc in NGC 5728 and NGC 3393. The gas morphology is complex, following closely the radio jet and the X-ray emission. Emission line ratios suggest gas excitation by shocks produced by the passage of the radio jet. This scenario is further supported by the physical conditions derived for the HIG, stressing the importance of the mechanical feedback in AGN with low-power radio jets.

The evolution of the structural and kinematic properties of early-type galaxies (ETGs), their scaling relations, as well as their stellar metallicity and age contain precious information on the assembly history of these systems. We present results on the evolution of the stellar mass-velocity dispersion relation of ETGs, focusing in particular on the effects of some selection criteria used to define ETGs. We also try to shed light on the role that in-situ and ex-situ stellar populations have in massive ETGs, providing a possible explanation of the observed metallicity distributions.

Post-starburst galaxies (PSBGs) are systems that experienced a burst followed by a rapid quenching of star formation. However, it is still unclear what causes these events and what is the environmental role in the origin of PSBGs. To address this, we analysed sizes, morphologies, ages, and metallicities of PSBGs at 0.05 ≤ z ≤ 0.1 in groups and clusters of galaxies. We find a statistically significant excess of compact PSBGs in groups compared to a control sample of passive galaxies. Satellite PSBGs in groups tend to be more compact compared to their counterparts in clusters. Additionally, the PSBGs in groups have smaller T-type values and are likely to be found in inner group regions compared to PSBGs in clusters. Our results are compatible with dissipative wet merger events being an important mechanism responsible for the origin of PSBGs in groups, but other – less dissipative – processes may be producing PSBGs in cluster environments.

We present the latest data release of the Planetary Nebulae Spectrograph Survey (PNS) of ten lenticular galaxies and two spiral galaxies. With this data set we are able to recover the galaxies’ kinematics out to several effective radii. We use a maximum likelihood method to decompose the disk and spheroid kinematics and we compare it with the kinematics of spiral and elliptical galaxies. We build the Tully- Fisher (TF) relation for these galaxies and we compare with data from the literature and simulations. We find that the disks of lenticular galaxies are hotter than the disks of spiral galaxies at low redshifts, but still dominated by rotation velocity. The mechanism responsible for the formation of these lenticular galaxies is neither major mergers, nor a gentle quenching driven by stripping or Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) feedback.

The DIVING3D Survey (Deep Integral Field Spectrograph View of Nuclei of Galaxies) aims to observe, with high signal/noise and high spatial resolution, a statistically complete sample of southern galaxies brighter than B = 12.0 The main objectives of this survey are to study: 1) the nuclear emission line properties; 2) the circumnuclear emission line properties; 3) the central stellar kinematics and 4) the central stellar archaeology. Preliminary results of individual or small groups of galaxies have been published in 18 papers.

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.

Starbursting dust-rich galaxies are capable of assembling large amounts of stellar mass very quickly. They have been proposed as progenitors of the population of compact massive quiescent galaxies at z ˜ 2. To test this connection, we present a detailed spatially-resolved study of the stars, dust, and stellar mass in a sample of six submillimeter-bright starburst galaxies at z ˜ 4.5. We found that the systems are undergoing minor mergers and the bulk star formation is located in extremely compact regions. On the other hand, optically-compact star forming galaxies have also been proposed as immediate progenitors of compact massive quiescent galaxies. Were they formed in slow secular processes or in rapid merger-driven starbursts? We explored the location of galaxies with respect to star-forming and structural relations and study the burstiness of star formation. Our results suggest that compact star-forming galaxies could be starbursts winding down and eventually becoming quiescent.

The role of quasar feedback in galaxy evolution remains poorly understood. Throughout this work, we explore the effects of negative feedback on star formation in quasar host galaxies, analysing two distinct populations of quasars. The first is a sample of high-redshift (z > 2) low-ionisation broad absorption line quasars (LoBALs) - a class of quasars hosting energetic mass outflows, in which we find evidence for prolific star formation (>750Mʘyr–1) exceeding that of non-BAL quasars at the same redshift. The second is a population of 207 low-redshift (z < 0.3) quasars, in which we find an enhancement in the SFRs of quasar hosts compared to the underlying galaxy population, with no quasars residing in quiescent hosts over the last 2Gyr. Overall, we find no evidence for galaxy-wide quenching in either population, rather we suggest that the dominant effect of quasar activity is to enhance star formation in the galaxy.

We present results of a multiwavelength study of the isolated dual AGN system Was 49. Observations show that the dominant component in this interacting system, Was 49a, is a spiral galaxy, while Was 49b is hosted in a dwarf galaxy located at 8 kpc from the nucleus of Was 49a, at the edge of its disk. The intriguing fact about this system is the luminosity of their corresponding AGNs. While Was 49a hosts a low luminosity Seyfert 2 with Lbol˜1043 erg s–1, Was 49b has a Seyfert 2 with Lbol ˜ 1045 erg s–1, in the luminosity range of Quasars. Furthermore, estimates of the black hole and host galaxy masses of Was 49b indicate a black hole significantly more massive than one would expect from scaling relations. This result is in contrast with findings that the most luminous merger-triggered AGNs are found in major mergers and that minor mergers predominantly enhance AGN activity in the primary galaxy.

We present results of the propagation of high-energy cosmic rays (CRs) and their secondaries in the intracluster medium (ICM). To this end, we employ three-dimensional cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulations of the turbulent intergalactic medium to explore the propagation of CRs with energies between 1014 and 1019 eV. We study the interaction of test particles with this environment considering all relevant electromagnetic, photohadronic, photonuclear, and hadronuclear processes. Finally, we discuss the consequences of the confinement of high-energy CRs in clusters for the production of gamma rays and neutrinos.

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.

We use the LLAMA survey to study the density and outflow rate of ionized gas in a complete volume limited sample of local (<40 Mpc) luminous (43.0 < log LAGN(erg/s) < 44.5) AGN selected by very hard 14-195 keV X-rays. The detailed data available for this survey enable us to measure the density of the outflowing ionized gas in the central 300 pc of these AGN using three different and independent methods (the standard [SII] doublet ratio; a method comparing [OII] and [SII] ratios that include auroral and transauroral lines; and a recently proposed method based on the ionization parameter). For each method there is, as expected, a modest spread of densities among the AGN in the sample. But remarkably, the median densities for each method differ hugely, by an order of magnitude from below 400 cm-3 to almost 5000 cm-3. We discuss how the derived densities can be reconciled, and what the impact is on the implied outflow rate.

We used Gemini NIFS integral field spectroscopy to analyse the molecular and ionised gas kinematics of six nearby (z ⩽ 0.015) Seyfert galaxies with a spatial coverage of 0.1 – 0.6 kpc2. By fitting the emission-line profiles using multiple Gaussian components we determined that the ionised and hot molecular gas kinematics are dominated by gas outflows and rotation, respectively, even though three objects also present molecular outflows.

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).

Using WISE data, we calibrated the W2-W3 colors in terms of star formation rates (SFRs) and applied this calibration to a sample of 1285 QSOs with the highest flux quality, covering a range in redshift from z ˜ 0.3 to z ˜ 3.8. According to our calibration, the SFR increases continuously, reaching a value at z ˜ 3.8 about 3 times higher on average than at lower redshift. This increase in SFR is accompanied by an increase of the BH mass by a factor 100 and a gradual increase of the mean Eddington ratio from 0.1 to 0.3 up to z ˜ 1.5 – 2.0, above which the ratio stays constant, despite a significant increase in BH mass. Therefore, QSOs at high redshifts have both more active BHs and higher levels of star formation activity.

Interactions and mergers between dwarf galaxies are mostly gas-rich and should be marked by an intense star formation activity. But these processes, which are expected to be common at earlier times, are very difficult to observe at low redshifts. To investigate that, we look in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) for compact groups that contain one luminous compact galaxy (LCG) with very high specific star formation rate (sSFR) and at least two other blue galaxies. We found 24 groups that satisfy these criteria, among which 12 groups have SDSS spectroscopic data for at least 2 member galaxies. Here we want to investigate, using the tidal strength estimator Q, how interactions between neighbouring galaxies affect the sSFR and concentration of each LCG. Statistical tests reveal a correlation between Q and their sSFR, indicating that tidal forces between neighbouring galaxies might be inducing bursts of star formation in the LCGs.

In this work, we study the optical properties of 58 CSS/GPS radio sources selected from the literature in order to determine the impact of the radio-jet in the circumnuclear environment of these objects. We obtained optical spectra for all sources from SDSS-DR12 and performed a stellar population synthesis using the Starlight code. Our results indicate that the sample is dominated by intermediate to old stellar populations and there is no strong correlation between optical and radio properties of these sources.

We present a machine learning methodology to separate quasars from galaxies and stars using data from S-PLUS in the Stripe-82 region. In terms of quasar classification, we achieved 95.49% for precision and 95.26% for recall using a Random Forest algorithm. For photometric redshift estimation, we obtained a precision of 6% using k-Nearest Neighbour.

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.