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OATS-DAUT SEMINAR
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Speaker: Gregory Rudnick (Univ. of Kansas, USA)
Title: The Evolution of Red Galaxies in Clusters over Most of Cosmic
Time
Date: Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
Time: 12:00
Venue: Villa Bazzoni
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Abstract:
Tracking the growth of stellar mass in galaxies is a
fundamental characterization of the galaxy population. Recent
observations have shown that the total mass in L>L* red galaxies has
increased by a factor of ~2 at z<1, although at different rates as a
function of galaxy mass. Despite the advance made by these studies of
the whole galaxy population, until recently it has not been clear if
the growth of the red sequence depended on environment. Galaxy
clusters are a useful probe of this as they sample the most extreme
environments. I will show how the luminosity function (LF) of
red-sequence galaxies in clusters and the field has evolved over 50%
of cosmic time, highlighting the rapid buildup of the faint cluster
galaxy population. I will address how the total mass on the red
sequence evolves in clusters and will use this to constrain the
mechanisms of how red galaxies can be added to clusters. From this
analysis it appears likely that some fraction of the light in recently
added cluster red sequence galaxies is currently in the form of
intracluster stars. Finally, I will show some new results focusing
on a newly discovered cluster at z=1.62.
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contact: Gabriella De Lucia (OATS)