Contatto di riferimento: Eros Vanzella
Partecipanti: Francesca Annibali (INAF-OABo)
Abstract:
Studies of accretion events in star-forming dwarf galaxies are crucial to our understanding of cosmology and galaxy evolution. Although Lambda CDM models predict that sub-structures persist down to the resolution limit of the simulations, accretion events onto galaxies smaller than the LMC have been elusive so far. In this context, direct observational evidence of dwarfs accreting smaller dwarfs would be important to probe the hierarchical formation process down to the smallest galactic scales. Furthermore, it has been suggested that strong starbursts in local dwarf galaxies can be triggered by merger/accretion events, an hypothesis that deserves a more in detail investigation for our comprehension of the high-z Universe.
During this talk, I will present a project to tackle the problem of "satellites accreting satellites" based on two different, but complementary,
approaches: i) the direct detection of stellar substructures around local dwarfs through wide-field imaging, and ii) the indirect detection of accretion/interaction signs through characterization of the chemical paths up to large galacto-centric distances. The outcome of i) and ii) will be eventually analyzed through N-body simulations and chemo-dynamical models, using also the complementary information on the star formation histories from deep HST photometry.
The seminar will start at 14:00 in the seminar room (-1).