Subaru Seminars



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The Subaru Seminar is usually held in Room 104 of the Hilo Base Facility, adjacent to the main lobby. Everyone is welcome to attend. If you are interested in giving a seminar, please contact Masayuki Akiyama by email.

Tuesday 17 June at 13:30pm

"Color Gradients in Elliptical Galaxies: Evidence for Environmental Dependence of Galaxy Formation Process ?"

Naoyuki Tamura (University of Durham, UK)

Nearby elliptical galaxies are known to have radial gradients of color and metal absorption line strength; colors gradually become redder and metal absorption lines become stronger towards the center, suggesting that stellar population in an elliptical galaxy changes with radius. Such a spatial variation of stellar population is likely to reflect how the galaxy assembled. On the other hand, formation history of elliptical galaxy is likely to depend on its environment. Therefore, it is important to study the observational properties in various environments and compare one population with another. Radial gradients of color and metal absorption line strength gradient have been investigated so far in several tens of nearby elliptical galaxies. One of the shortcomings of these studies, however, is that almost all the galaxies reside not in rich clusters but in relatively sparse environments. Recently, we performed B and R band surface photometry for E/S0 galaxies in rich clusters (ABELL 2199 and Coma). Based on the results from our data and those from the literature, I will discuss formation process of elliptical galaxy and its environmental dependence.



Seminars are also held at JAC, CFHT, and IfA.



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