We present the first infrared light curve of GRO J0422+32, and use it along with R-band data and published I- and Cousins R_c-band data to constrain the inclination of the system to be between 10 deg and 26 deg, implying that the black hole mass is greater than ~15Msolar. Remodeling the data with a 30 per cent accretion disc contamination level

We investigate the internal structure and density profiles of halos of mass $10^{10}-10^{14}~M_\odot$ in the Evolution and Assembly of Galaxies and their Environment (EAGLE) simulations. These follow the formation of galaxies in a $\Lambda$CDM Universe and include a treatment of the baryon physics thought to be relevant. The EAGLE simulations

We study relationships between star-formation rate (SFR) and the accretion luminosity and nuclear obscuration of X-ray selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) using a combination of deep far-infrared (FIR) and X-ray data in three key extragalactic survey fields (GOODS-South, GOODS-North and COSMOS), as part of the PACS Evolutionary Probe (PEP)

To understand the formation and evolution of solar-type stars and planets in the solar neighborhood, we need to obtain their stellar parameters with high precision. We present a catalog of precise stellar parameters for the FGK stars in a volume limited sample followed by the HARPS spectrograph in the quest for extra solar planets. The

We present the results of the analysis of spectra and photometry for more than 14,000 stars which are part of the second public data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We discuss the inferred metallicities and distances, which suggest that the formation of the Galactic thick disk took place over a short period of time.

Using effective temperature and metallicity derived from SDSS spectra for ~60,000 F- and G-type main-sequence stars (0.2