We present a spectroscopic analysis of the central disc regions of barredspiral galaxies, concentrating on the region that is swept by the bar but notincluding the bar itself (the `Star Formation Desert' or SFD region). Newspectroscopy is presented for 34 galaxies, and the full sample analysedcomprises 48 SBa - SBcd galaxies. These data confirm the full suppression ofstar formation within the SFD regions of all but the latest type (SBcd)galaxies. However, diffuse [NII] and H alpha line emission is detected in allgalaxies. The ubiquity and homogeneous properties of this emission from SBa -SBc galaxies favour post-Asymptotic Giant Branch (p-AGB) stars as the source ofthis line excitation, rather than extreme Blue Horizontal Branch stars. Theemission-line ratios strongly exclude any contribution from recent starformation, but are fully consistent with recent population synthesis modellingof p-AGB emission by other authors, and favour excitation dominated by ambientgas of approximately solar abundance, rather than ejecta from the AGB starsthemselves. The line equivalent widths are also larger than those observed inmany fully passive (e.g. elliptical) galaxies, which may also be a consequenceof a greater ambient gas density in the SFD regions.

Since September 2018, LAMOST starts a new 5-year medium-resolutionspectroscopic survey (MRS) using bright/gray nights. We present the scientificgoals of LAMOST-MRS and propose a near optimistic strategy of the survey. Acomplete footprint is also provided. Not only the regular medium-resolutionsurvey, but also a time-domain spectroscopic survey is being conducted since2018 and will be end in 2023. According to the detailed survey plan, we expectthat LAMOST-MRS can observe about 2 million stellar spectra with ~7500 andlimiting magnitude of around G=15 mag. Moreover, it will also provide about 200thousand stars with averagely 60-epoch observations and limiting magnitude ofG~14 mag. These high quality spectra will give around 20 elemental abundances,rotational velocities, emission line profiles as well as precise radialvelocity with uncertainty less than 1 km/s. With these data, we expect thatLAMOST can effectively leverage sciences on stellar physics, e.g. exotic binarystars, detailed observation of many types of variable stars etc., planet hoststars, emission nebulae, open clusters, young pre-main-sequence stars etc.

We study the kinematics of the giant H II regions NGC 5455 and NGC 5471located in the galaxy M101, using integral field observations that include theHbeta and [O III] 5007 emission lines, obtained with the Keck Cosmic WebImager. We analyse the line profiles using both single and multiple Gaussiancurves, gathering evidence for the presence of several expanding shells andmoving filaments. The line decomposition shows that a broad (sigma = 30-50km/s) underlying component is ubiquitous, extending across hundreds of pc,while a large fraction of the narrow components have subsonic line widths. Thesupersonic turbulence inferred from the global line profiles is consistent withthe velocity dispersion of the individual narrow components, i.e. the globalprofiles likely arise from the combined contribution of discrete gas clouds. Weconfirm the presence of very extended (400 - 1200 km/s) low-intensity linecomponents in three bright star-forming cores in NGC 5471, possiblyrepresenting kinematic signatures of supernova remnants. For one of these, theknown supernova remnant host NGC 5471 B, we find a significantly reduced [OIII]/Hbeta line ratio relative to the surrounding photoionized gas, due to thepresence of a radiative shock at low metallicity. We explore the systematicwidth discrepancy between H I and [O III] lines, present in both global andindividual spaxel spectra. We argue that the resolution of this long-standingproblem lies in the physics of the line-emitting gas rather than in thesmearing effects induced by the different thermal widths.

Massive disk galaxies like the Milky Way are expected to form at late timesin traditional models of galaxy formation, but recent numerical simulationssuggest that such galaxies could form as early as a billion years after the BigBang through the accretion of cold material and mergers. Observationally, ithas been difficult to identify disk galaxies in emission at high redshift, inorder to discern between competing models of galaxy formation. Here we reportimaging, with a resolution of about 1.3 kiloparsecs, of the 158-micrometreemission line from singly ionized carbon, the far-infrared dust continuum andthe near-ultraviolet continuum emission from a galaxy at a redshift of 4.2603,identified by detecting its absorption of quasar light. These observations showthat the emission arises from gas inside a cold, dusty, rotating disk with arotational velocity of 272 kilometres per second. The detection of emissionfrom carbon monoxide in the galaxy yields a molecular mass that is consistentwith the estimate from the ionized carbon emission of about 72 billion solarmasses. The existence of such a massive, rotationally supported, cold diskgalaxy when the Universe was only 1.5 billion years old favours formationthrough either cold-mode accretion or mergers, although its large rotationalvelocity and large content of cold gas remain challenging to reproduce withmost numerical simulations.

We use the stellar kinematics for $2458$ galaxies from the MaNGA survey toexplore dynamical scaling relations between the stellar mass $M_{\star}$ andthe total velocity parameter at the effective radius, $R_e$, defined as$S_{K}^{2}=KV_{R_e}^{2}+\sigma_{\star_e}^{2}$, which combines rotation velocity$V_{R_e}$, and velocity dispersion $\sigma_{\star_e}$. We confirm thatspheroidal and spiral galaxies follow the same $M_{\star}-S_{0.5}$ scalingrelation with lower scatter than the $M_{\star}-V_{R_e}$ and$M_{\star}-\sigma_{\star_e}$ ones. We also explore a more general UniversalFundamental Plane described by the equation $log(\Upsilon_{e}) = log(S_{0.5}^{2}) - log (I_{e}) - log (R_{e}) + C$, which in addition tokinematics, $S_{0.5}$, and effective radius, $R_e$, it includes surfacebrightness, $I_e$, and dynamical mass-to-light ratio, $\Upsilon_e$. We usesophisticated Schwarzschild dynamical models for a sub-sample of 300 galaxiesfrom the CALIFA survey to calibrate the so called Universal Fundamental Plane.That calibration allows us to propose both: (i) a parametrization to estimatethe difficult-to-measure dynamical mass-to-light ratio at the effective radius;and (ii) a new dynamical mass proxy consistent with dynamical models within$0.09\ dex$. We reproduce the relation between the dynamical mass and thestellar mass in the inner regions of galaxies. We use the estimated dynamicalmass-to-light ratio from our analysis, $\Upsilon_{e}^{fit}$, to explore theUniversal Fundamental Plane with the MaNGA data set. We find that all classesof galaxies, from spheroids to disks, follow this Universal Fundamental Planewith a scatter significantly smaller $(0.05\ dex)$ than the one reported forthe $M_{\star}-S_{0.5}$ relation $(0.1\ dex)$, the Fundamental Plane $(\sim0.09\ dex)$ and comparable with Tully-Fisher studies $(\sim 0.05\ dex)$, butfor a wider range of galaxy types.