CfA OIR Division Lunch Talks


Wednesday, December 6, 2006, 11:00 am
160 Concord Ave., 3rd Floor Conference Room
>>> Note special day, time, and place <<<


Formation Histories and Structures of Massive Galaxies at z>2

Dr. Ivo Labbe (OCIW)

One of the premier unsolved questions in cosmology is how massive galaxies assembled their stars and central black holes. Multiwavelength observations are now enabling us to address these questions directly by studying massive galaxies during their main formation epoch z = 1.5--3. Deep infrared imaging from Spitzer is playing a fundamental role in these studies. I will discuss the constraints placed by IRAC, MIPS, and X-ray observations on the stellar populations and star formation/AGN activity in this crucial redshift range. A particular striking result is the photometric identification of substantial numbers massive old "dead" galaxies at z>2 with very low specific star formation rates, which appear to make up 30-40% of z~2.5 galaxies at the high mass end. The first follow-up studies with NICMOS show that these old massive galaxies are remarkably compact, presenting us with new puzzles about their structural evolution to the present day. Pushing to the highest redshifts, the unprecedented sensitivity of Spitzer/IRAC has allowed us to probe the stellar-masses and ages of luminous galaxies at z > 7 in the Ultra Deep Field, providing a glimpse of the earliest phases of galaxy formation. I will place these results in the context of formation scenarios for massive galaxies, and look ahead to the future with the expected launch of the far-IR Herschel Telescope, and the installation of WFC3 on Hubble in the next 18 months.