Studying the stellar mass growth of early-type galaxies in the nearby universe

• Grant number: 16/04195-9
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Start date: July 23, 2016
• End date: August 30, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Astronomy - Extragalactic Astrophysics
• Principal Investigator: Reinaldo Ramos de Carvalho
• Grantee: Reinaldo Ramos de Carvalho
• Visiting researcher: Francesco La Barbera
• Visiting researcher institution: Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Italy
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia (EE). Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM). Instituto Presbiteriano Mackenzie. São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 14/11156-4 - What drives the stellar mass growth of Early-Type galaxies? Born or made: the saga continues, AP.TEM

Abstract

The present project focus on two aspects of the study of how elliptical galaxies evolve in different environments and as a function of the redshift: 1) Constraining, with unprecedented detail, the stellar IMF of massive, nearby, early-type galaxies, using new, extremely deep, proprietary spectroscopy obtained from the proposers with the VLT X-Shooter spectrograph; 2) Application of an algorithm for morphological classification of galaxies in the ESO public survey KiDS (Kilo-Degree Survey) carried out with the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at Cerro Paranal (Chile). This research is very ambitious in its nature since we plan on establishing an unbiased sample of bright elliptical galaxies up to redshift ~ 1.0 that will be of paramount importance in extending our previous study of the properties of early-type systems in the low-redshift regime (SPIDER - Spheroids Panchromatic Investigation in Different Environmental Regions). (AU)