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JOINT DAUT-ICTP-OATS-SISSA COLLOQUIUM
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Speaker: Tim de Zeeuw (ESO, Munich)

Title: The SAURON Survey

Date: Thursday, September 18th, 2008
Time: 16:00
Venue: Villa Bazzoni

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Abstract:
Much world-wide effort is devoted to the study of the formation and evolution of galaxies, ranging from observations of the most distant objects in the early Universe to detailed analysis of the motions of individual stars in the Milky Way, combined with theoretical work and numerical simulations. Developments in optical instrumentation make it possible to measure the motions and physical properties of stellar populations in nearby galaxies, and to determine the properties of the supermassive black holes in their centres. A representative survey of nearby early-type galaxies and spiral bulges with SAURON, a panoramic integral-field spectrograph custom-built for the UK/NL/E 4.2m William Herschel Telescope on La Palma, reveals a fascinating diversity of properties. The stellar and gaseous kinematics and the line-strength distributions provide the intrinsic shape of the galaxies, their orbital structure, the mass-to-light ratio as a function of radius, the frequency and structure of kinematically decoupled cores, the masses of nuclear black holes, and the relation between orbital structure and the age and metallicity of the stellar populations. This 'fossil record' gives key insight into the galaxy formation process. The talk will summarize recent results of the SAURON survey, and briefly discuss the next steps.
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contact: Andrea Biviano (OATS)