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OATS-UNI/TS SEMINAR
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Speaker: Benedetta Vulcani (INAF, OAPd)

Title: The galaxy stellar mass function in different environments and at different redshifts
Date: Monday, July 11th, 2011
Time: 15:00
Venue: Villa Bazzoni

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Abstract: The properties of galaxies change in a systematic way with galaxy mass, with redshift and with environment. Understanding which factor is the most important in driving galaxy evolution is one of the main goals of astrophysics. It is well known that several galaxy properties are largely determined by the stellar mass. I will present the first determination of the mass function of galaxies in clusters, as a function of the galaxy morphological type, and how it evolves between z=0.8 and z=0. I will show how strong is the evolution of the total mass function, and of the mass function of EACH morphological type (ellipticals, S0s and late-types) in clusters, and discuss the possible processes that cause this. Then, fixing a redshift, I will present also how much the mass distribution varies among different envirnoments, defined both locally and globally. We have found that while there is no evidence for a dependance of the mass function on global environment, the role of local density is not negligible, indicating that local density is more important than the mass halo in which galaxies are embedded in shaping the mass distribution, at least for z<0.8. These results have several far reaching implications for the mass assembly, the mass segregation with environment and the morphological evolution of galaxies.
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Contact: Gabriella De Lucia (OAT)