M32 is the prototype for the relatively rare class of galaxies referred to as compact ellipticals. It has been suggested that M32 may be a tidally disturbed r elliptical galaxy, or the remnant bulge of a disk-stripped early-type spiral galaxy. This paper reveals that the surface brightness profile, the velocity dispersion measurements, and the estimated supermassive black hole mass in M32 are i...

Context. The formation and evolution of the Milky Way bulge is not yet well understood and its classification is ambiguous. Constraints can, however, be obtained by studying the abundances of key elements in bulge stars. Aims. The aim of this study is to determine the chemical evolution of C, N, O, and a few other elements in stars in the Galactic bulge, and to discuss the sensitivities of the ...

Microlensing searches toward the inner galaxy (|l|, |b| ≤ 22.5) have several major advantages. First, the event rate is strongly dominated by bulge-bulge lensing events where both the source and lens lie in the bulge. Second, these bulge-bulge events have very short time scales te ∼ 2 days and are therefore easily distinguished from the less frequent and much longer bulge-disk and disk-disk eve...

We present an analysis of the period-V -amplitude plane for RR0 Lyrae stars (fundamental mode pulsators) with “normal” light curves in the bulge using the MACHO bulge fields. Although bulge globular clusters have RR Lyraes that divide into two reasonable distinct groups according to the average period of the RR0 Lyraes (Oosterhoff 1939), there is no evidence of a gap between Oosterhoff I and II...

Meiotic maturation is essential for the reproduction procedure of many animals. During this process an oocyte produces a large egg cell and tiny polar bodies by highly asymmetric division. In this study, to fully understand the sophisticated spatiotemporal regulation of accurate oocyte meiotic division, we focused on the global and local changes in the tension at the surface of the starfish (As...

A three-dimensional hydrodynamical N-body model for the formation of the Galaxy is presented with special attention to the formation of the bulge component. Since all previous numerical models for the Galaxy formation do not have a proper treatment of the chemical evolution and/or sufficient spatial resolutions, we have constructed a detailed model of the chemical and dynamical evolution of the...

We report about the fact that the stellar population that is born in the gas inflowing towards the central regions can be vertically unstable leading to a B/PS feature remarkably bluer that the surrounding bulge . Using new chemodynamical simulations we show that this young population does not remain as flat as the gaseous nuclear disc and buckles out of the plane to form a new boxy bulge. We s...

Recent large-scale surveys of galactic bulge stars allowed to build a detailed map of the bulge kinematics. The bulge exhibits cylindrical rotation consistent with a disky origin which evolved through bar-driven secular evolution. However, correlations betweenmetallicity and kinematics complicate this picture. In particular ametal-poor component with distinct kinematic signatures has been detec...