Title: Star Formation and Assembly of Galaxies  

Speaker: Xu Kong (USTC)  

Time & Place: Thursday, 3:00pm, June 12th, Lecture Hall, 3rd floor   

Abstract: Galaxies are categorized into two main populations, red quiescent galaxies and blue star-forming galaxies. One of the key questions is which physical mechanisms are responsible for quenching star formation activities in blue galaxies and the resulting transformation? In this talk, I present research on the properties of “green valley” galaxies in the COSMOS field and to constrain mechanisms that lead to star formation quenching. In the end, I will show our new progress about two-dimensional optical spectroscopy of nearby galaxies with MMT and the NAOC2.16m telescope, and discuss how does this project provides constraints on galaxy formation scenarios.   

Biog: Xu Kong obtained his PhD from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2000. After postdoc positions in Germany and Japan, he returned to China in 2005 to take up a position as professor of astronomy at USTC. He has broad interests in astronomy but most of my work is in the area of the physical properties of galaxies, from nearby to high redshift galaxies.