Семинар по гравитации и космологии имени Абрама Леонидовича Зельманова

Сопредседатели:   М.В.Сажин, А.А.Старобинский
Секретарь:            О.С.Сажина (939-5006)

Очередной семинар (№203) состоится в среду, 23 июня 2010
в 17:00 в конференц-зале ГАИШ (2 этаж)  

On the nature of elliptical galaxies
Massimo Capaccioli (Department of Physical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II)

Аннотация: 
The seminar will review the long standing investigation on the nature, formation and evolution of the morphological class of galaxies characterized regular isophotes and disordered stellar motions, from the first seminal paper on the lack of angular momentum in flat objects to the recent studies on the role of feedback processes and on the effects of time evolution and metallicity onto the color gradients of hot stellar systems, through:
- the analysis of the light distribution (which, in passing, led to the very first conjecture on nuclear black holes) and to the introduction of a second photometric
parameter (the Sersic index),
- the finding of the correlation between size and surface brightness (account recently by N-body simulation) leading to the introduction of two genetic families of galaxies brighter and fainter than L* (with the still unexplained upper limit in size for the fainter objects),
- the discovery of the unexpected UV turn up in the energy distribution,
- the search of signs of interaction, and of the presence of gas and dust in otherwise dead systems, and the effects of the ambient,
- the kinematical mapping of the halos through the Planetary Nebulae which stimulated the search for correlations of the properties of the dark matter haloes with morphology of the baryonic component and its luminosity,
- the examination of the stellar content by a revisited utilization of surface brightness fluctuations.

Nowadays, the wealth of discoveries has bulldozed the oversimplifies scheme of morphological segregation of galaxies based first on specific angular momentum and then on interactions. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has greatly contributed to accumulate new evidences, but the current galaxy formation scenario, albeit convincing, is still in its infancy. The scientific community is currently pushing hard the technological efforts in the race for wider, deeper, and higher quality galaxy surveys to gain insight in the galaxy evolution processes. The VLT Survey Telescope, conceived and built in Naples, will take part in this race, coming into operation in the very next months at the ESO Observatory of Cerro Paranal, Chile.
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