Bibcode
van der Wolk, Guido; Barthel, Peter; Bureau, Martin; Falcon-Barroso, Jesus; Ganda, Katia; Knapen, Johan; Peletier, Reynier; Sarzi, Marc; Shapiro, Kristen
Bibliographical reference
Spitzer Proposal ID #50630
Advertised on:
3
2008
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
The determination of the star formation history of galaxies and the
origin of the ISM fuel is one of the main unsolved issues in the study
of the formation and evolution of galaxies. By now it appears that
supermassive black holes play a major role in regulating the amount of
gas, and thus the star formation in their host system. To understand
these processes, it is important to simultaneously trace the i)
properties of the interstellar medium, ii) the star formation rate, and
iii) the nuclear activity. Our representative set of nearby elliptical,
lenticular and early-type spiral galaxies, the SAURON sample, is ideal
for such a study. For all 72 galaxies in this sample, we have measured
the kinematics of the stars and ionized gas, as well as the stellar
populations, via integral field spectroscopy. These data are crucial for
understanding the mass distribution within a system, as well as
kinematic substructures such as disks and decoupled cores, which likely
play a significant role in driving star formation. We therefore propose
to complement this sample with Spitzer IRAC and MIPS images, in order to
quantitatively study the amount of star formation and dust in these
systems. With the combination of Spitzer imaging and SAURON integral
field data, we will be able to study the origin of the ISM in these
early-type systems, and the affect of stellar and gas kinematics on star
formation. Furthermore, using the multi-wavelength dataset (GALEX, CO,
HI) we have accumulated for this sample, we will be able to isolate the
contribution from the AGN and connect activity to other processes within
the system in order to study the fueling of AGN. The data proposed here
will therefore create a unique set of data that will provide much
insight into the forces that drive galaxy evolution.