Faifer, Favio
Argentina – Instituto de Astrofísica de la Plata
The formation of “old” galaxies in the Local Universe
Massive elliptical galaxies have very old and metal-rich stellar populations. Both theoretical and observational evidence suggest that they formed their stars shortly after the Big Bang. On the other hand, although they are simple and smooth in appearance, these galaxies show a wide diversity in their properties and there are still many unknowns about their origin and evolution.
Interestingly, in the Local Universe there are several objects of this type that are still in the process of being assembled, which constitutes a unique opportunity to study in detail the formation of this kind of galaxy. In this talk we present new results from our observational study of a sample of proto-elliptical galaxies in different states of evolution, and we address the question whether they will be early-type galaxies with typical properties in the future or not. In the analysis we will focus on various evolutionary tracers such as the properties of the diffuse stellar population, the interstellar medium and star clusters.