Structure and Substructure of Galactic Spheroids

Details Structure and Substructure of Galactic Spheroids Structure and Substructure of Galactic Spheroids

2009-02-18

arxiv.org/abs/0902.3025v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

Astro2010 Science White Paper; 8 pages, 2 figures

Scientific paper

The full spatio-chemo-dynamical structure of galaxies of all types and environments at low redshift provides a critical accompaniment to observations of galaxy formation at high redshift. The next decade brings the observational opportunity to strongly constrain nearby galaxies' histories of star formation and assembly, especially in the spheroids that comprise the large majority of the stellar mass in the Universe but have until now been difficult to study. In order to constrain the pathways to building up the spheroidal "red-sequence", various standard techniques in photometry and spectroscopy, particularly with resolved tracer populations like globular clusters and planetary nebulae, can be scaled up to comprehensive surveys as improved wide-field instrumentation is increasingly available. At the same time, progress in adaptive optics on giant telescopes could for the first time permit deep, resolved photometric and spectroscopic analysis of large samples of individual stars in these systems, thereby revolutionizing galaxy studies. Strong theoretical support is needed in order to understand the new observational constraints via detailed modeling and self-consistent simulations of star and galaxy formation throughout cosmic time.

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