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JOINT DAUT-ICTP-OATS-SISSA COLLOQUIUM
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Speaker: Alvio Renzini (INAF-OAPD - Padova)

Title: Elliptical Galaxies from Low to High Redshift

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Abstract: Early-Type galaxies (ETG) contain the majority of the stellar mass in the local universe, hence understanding their formation and evolution is central to the problem of galaxy formation in general. Clues on ETG formation will first be discussed as coming from observations of local, low-redshift galaxies, with emphasis on the properties of their stellar populations. This will include clues from the color-magnitude, color-sigma, and fundamental plane relations, as well as from the spectral line indices. It will then be shown as such relations evolve with increasing redshift all the way to z>1, and it will be discussed to which extent the high-z data confirm the indications on the formation epoch as derived from the low-z data. The evolution with redshift of the luminosity and mass functions of ETGs will be finally presented, along with a brief discussion of current theoretical attempts to reproduce the observations.
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