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OATS-DAUT SEMINAR
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Speaker:
Patricia Sánchez-Blázquez
(Univ. of Central Lancashire, UK)
Title:
The star formation history of early-type galaxies
Date: Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
Time: 12:00
Venue: Villa Bazzoni
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Abstract:
Supposedly the simplest family of galaxies, the formation of
ellipticals remains something of a perplexing mystery. Because of
their relatively simple structure, ellipticals were long thought to
originate via the collapse of an isolated cloud of gas; unfortunately,
it is clear that their assembly is far more chaotic than originally
envisioned, although how that chaotic merger- and interaction-history
can be made consistent with their equally (relatively) simple
appearance is unclear. Solving this mystery has led to concerted
multi-national experiments with large telescopes and high-performance
computing facilities. During this talk I will show how extragalactic
archaeologists attempt to deconstruct the fossil record of star
formation and chemistry from the integrated spectra of ellipticals. I
will present our results concerning the role of environment in the
formation of these systems and will stress the importance of analysing
the stellar populations along the radius of the galaxies, and not only
in the central parts.
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