ABSTRACT
Observations have shown that the termination of the star-forming activity in galaxies (quenching of star formation) is closely related to the structure of the galaxies, in the sense that passive galaxies tend to possess more compact structure. The surface mass density in the core region effectively describes the compactness of galaxies, and therefore have served to be one of the most sensitive predictors to quenching. It has been widely believed that this tight correlation between the compact cores and quiescence of galaixes mainly exists in massive central galaxies, in which the internal quenching plays the dominant role. However, recently studies have puzzlely shown that such structural-dependent quenching pattern also exists in low-mass galaxies in dense environment. In this talk, I will present our latest study which focuses on exploring the structural and environmental dependence on quenching of the nearby galaxies using galaxy sample drawn from SDSS survey. I will show that clear structural bimodality has been detected among the star-forming galaxies in almost all environments, in particular in low density. I will highlight its unique role on ceasing the star formation in local Universe.
BIO
Dr. Bingxiao Xu is a Peking postdoctoral fellow at Peking University. He earned his PhD degree from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. His research interests mainly focus on understanding the mutual interplay between the galaxy structure, environment and quenching, and their cosmic evolution. He is also actively involved in the research of strong gravitational lensing, such as search for giant arcs, multiple images, star-forming clumps at high redshifts, lensed source reconstruction, etc.
Host: Shuo Zhang
