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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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