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Stellar populations with ELTs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2006

Rosemary F.G. Wyse  and
Gerard Gilmore
Rosemary F.G. Wyse
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA email: [email protected]
Gerard Gilmore
Affiliation:
Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Rd, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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The star formation, mass assembly and chemical enrichment histories of galaxies, and their present distributions of dark matter, remain encoded in their stellar populations. Distinguishing the actual distribution functions of stellar age, metallicity and kinematics at several locations in a range of galaxies, sampling across Hubble types and representative environments, is the information required for a robust description of galaxy histories. Achieving this requires large aperture, to provide the sensitivity to reach a range of environs and Hubble types beyond the Local Group, to provide high spatial resolution, since the fields are crowded, and preferably with optical performance since age-sensitivity is greatest near the main-sequence turn-off, and metallicity-sensitivity for these warm stars is greatest in the optical.

Keywords

Galaxies: stellar contentformation; Stars: populations; Telescopes
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 1 , Symposium S232: Scientific Requirements for Extremely Large Telescopes , November 2005 , pp. 140 - 148
Copyright
2006 International Astronomical Union