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Ricardo Schiavon |
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"New Constraints on the
History of Star Formation of Early Type Galaxies" |
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About half of the stellar mass in the universe
today is contained in early-type galaxies, yet we don't know how
these objects were assembled. One of the best ways of
constraining models for the genesis of galaxies is to study when
their stars were formed. I will briefly describe how the method of
stellar population synthesis is used to help unveiling the history
of star formation of unresolved galaxies. This will be followed by
a presentation of results from the analysis of high quality spectra
of early
type galaxies in the local (SDSS) and distant (DEEP2) universe,
using my new
set of accurate stellar population synthesis models, which can be
used to
constrain the abundance pattern of stars in early-type galaxies, as
well as
their age distribution. Evidence from stellar ages and abundances
indicates
that:
Switching to the domain of resolved systems, I will conclude by briefly describing APOGEE, the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment, which is one of four SDSS-III surveys, aimed at studying the stellar populations of our own Galaxy. APOGEE will obtain high resolution H-band spectra of 100,000 stars, and is likely to bring about a paradigm change to our understanding of the formation of the Galaxy. |