Title: Uncover galaxies’ assembly history through a population-orbit superposition method

Speaker: Lin Zhu 朱玲

Institute: Shanghai Observatory

Host: Siyi Feng

Time: 14:30-16:30, Thursday, September, 29

Location: Physics Building 552

Abstract:

Modern integral field unit spectrographs (IFU) offer the ability to map the spatial distribution of the motions, ages, and chemical abundances of stars in galaxies. This unprecedented detailed view of galaxies offered by the data demands equally revolutionary analysis and modelling tools. For example, rather than simple integrated quantities within a given projected spatial region, novel tools developed in our group allow for the recovery of the intrinsic distributions of ages, chemical abundances and kinematics of separate components within a galaxy. Our  population-orbital dynamical models have already enabled several breakthroughs, including the detailed inventory of the intrinsic stellar orbit distribution in present-day galaxies across the Hubble sequence, and the first quantitative recovery of an ancient massive merger in a galaxy outside the Local Group. I will give some general introduction of IFU observations, and demonstrate the power of IFU data combined with a population-orbit superposition method in uncovering galaxies’ assembly history, with some key results in our group.

Bio:

2018-current, faculty, Shanghai Astronomical observatory

2013-2018, post-doc, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

2008-2013, Ph.D., Tsinghua University

2004-2008, B.S., Tsinghua University