Institut d'astrophysique spatiale

Jeudi 9 décembre 2010 à 14 h, bât. 121, salle 1-2-3

Massive bursts of star formation represent a transient, and possibly infrequent phase in the life of galaxies, but the disruption caused has implications for the birth of the Hubble sequence and the development of todays population of elliptical galaxies. I will show how complete samples of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey at low redshift, and the Vimos VLT Deep Survey at z~1, can be used to study the evolution of starbursts into the post-starburst phase. In particular I will focus on the rate of decline of star formation, the switching on of Black Hole accretion, and the potential contribution of major mergers to the birth and growth of elliptical galaxies.