Wunch Talks are held on Wednesdays at 12:00pm in Peyton Hall, room 33 (Old Tea Room).
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wunch rules section.
If you have any questions, or would like to give a talk, the contact section is for you.
Next Talk
Date: December 13 Speaker: Renbin Yan Title:
Galaxies in Transition: AGN Activity and Environments of Post-Starburst Galaxies
Abstract:
Post-starburst (K+A) galaxies are galaxies that have had their star formation quenched recently and are on their way to become red sequence galaxies. The nature of the quenching mechanism in K+A's is uncertain, but resolving it is critical to understanding the build-up of the red sequence population. With two large redshift survey datasets from SDSS (z~0.1) and DEEP2 (z~1), we have studied the K+A population at both low-z and high-z with identical methods. From the SDSS sample, we have discovered that the emission line commonly used to define K+A galaxies at high z, [OII] 3727, is heavily contaminated by LINER emission in many cases, complicating interpretation. Using selection techniques that avoid this problem, we find that at both low and high redshift, a large fraction of both red sequence and K+A galaxies have substantial [OII] and other line emission originating from AGN activity. K+A galaxies are preferentially found in underdense environments, which resembles their progenitors -- star-forming galaxies. The implications from these studies for the quenching mechanisms of star formation will be discussed.