10 April 2008

Speaker: Andres Jordan (CfA)

Title: Clay Fellowship Lecture:
Galaxies in Nearby Clusters: Cored Giants, Nucleated Dwarfs and Everything in Between.

Abstract: Nearly a century after the nature of galaxies as "island universes" was established, their formation and evolution remain important problems in modern astrophysics. Observations of elliptical galaxies in the Virgo and Fornax clusters show that on nuclear scales, galaxies exhibit a gradual progression from a light "deficit" (cores) to a light "excess" (stellar nuclei), while on larger scales the brightness profiles of galaxies are accurately described by Sersic models. The central regions of elliptical galaxies hold a constant fraction of their mass in a central massive object: a super-massive black hole, a nuclear star cluster, or a combination thereof. Elliptical galaxies, whether giants or dwarfs, are found to share a continuum of properties across the entire range of galaxy mass. Despite the tumultuous times galaxies experience as they form and evolve, their end products show clear trends that all galaxy formation and evolution models must be able to explain.

Video of the Presentation (Talks can be viewed with RealPlayer. Free download is available from www.real.com )