Shanghai Astronomical Observatory Astrophysics Colloquium

Title：The Initial Mass Function and Stellar Populations in Massive Early-Type Galaxies

Speaker：Dr. Meng Gu (Tsinghua University)

Time：1:30 pm Apr. 9th (Thursday)

Tencent Meeting：988762595

Location: Lecture Hall, 3rd floor

Abstract：Understanding how galaxies form and assemble is one of the central goals of astrophysics. Recent advances in stellar population synthesis modeling have moved the field well beyond the traditional 'age and metallicity' framework. By extracting detailed elemental abundance patterns and constraining the stellar initial mass function (IMF) from the integrated light of distant galaxies, we gain new insights into their star formation histories, stellar mass distributions, and dark matter content. In this talk, I will present new results from the MASSIVE survey on the stellar IMF and its spatial variation in nearby early-type galaxies. I will also discuss recent stellar population studies of massive galaxies and their extended environments. Finally, I will preview lookback studies enabled by the observations from the James Webb Space Telescope.

CV：Meng Gu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy at Tsinghua University. She previously held a faculty position at the University of Hong Kong. Prior to that, she held postdoctoral fellowships at Carnegie Observatories and in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. She began her graduate studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and received her PhD from Harvard University. Her research centers on galaxy formation and evolution, with an emphasis on stellar population synthesis, spectroscopy, and the spatially resolved properties of massive galaxies. She is particularly interested in the stellar initial mass function, environmental effects on galaxy evolution, and the formation history of massive galaxies.

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