The Star Formation History of Ellipticals from the Fossil Evidence

Extremely Red Objects (EROs) provide the important possibility to shed light on the formation and evolution of the present-day massive ellipticals. On one hand, they allow to select z>1 old passively evolving spheroidals and to compare their abundance with the predictions of galaxy formation scenarios. On the other hand, they provide the possibility to find dust obscured starbursts, a fraction of which may trace the formation of proto-ellipticals at z>2. In this paper, the mo...

We review the observational evidence showing that luminous cluster elliptical galaxies are old stellar systems, undergoing mostly passive stellar evolution up to redshift $z\approx 1$, with approximate coeval epoch of formation. This scenario is supported by observations of local early--types, collected by 2m -- 4m class telescopes, and fits the recently gained high resolution imaging (given by the refurbished HST) and deep spectroscopic data coming from 4m telescopes of $z\a...

The UV upturn phenomenon observed in elliptical galaxies is attractive for its potential value as an age indicator of old stellar systems. We present our most recent population models for the UV evolution of elliptical galaxies. We confirm that the dominant UV sources are either metal-poor or metal-rich hot horizontal-branch (HB) stars in local giant ellipticals, but we also note that the contribution from post-asymptotic-giant-branch (PAGB) stars overwhelms the UV spectrum a...

The traditional view of elliptical galaxies has been that they formed in a single, rapid burst of star formation at high redshift, and have evolved quiescently since that time. In opposition to this traditional view is evidence that at least some elliptical galaxies have formed from the merger of two disk galaxies. What has not been clear is which process is the dominant formation mechanism for the large majority of elliptical galaxies. This question has significant implicati...

Star formation in elliptical galaxies (Es) was and is mostly dominated by mergers and accretions with many suggestive examples seen among local galaxies. Present day star formation in Es is easily measurable in two thirds of Es and appears bursty in character. Direct age determinations from integrated light indicate real age scatter. If one assumes the oldest-looking galaxies are a Hubble time old, the light weighted mean ages of the rest spread to 0.5 of a Hubble time, with ...

The structural properties of elliptical galaxies are consistent with their formation in a merging hierarchy. In this picture, the role of gaseous processes and dissipation decreased with increasing mass creating preferentially rotationally flattend disky ellipticals (and S0s) at lower luminosities and boxy, anisotropic ellipticals (often with peculiar kinematics) at higher luminosities. However, gas and dissipation processes must have been important even in the formation of t...

We study the evolution of elliptical galaxies at z >~ 1 on the basis of a sample of 247 Extremely Red Objects (EROs) with R-Ks >= 3.35 (AB) and Ks <= 22.1 (AB) constructed from BVRi'z'JHKs multicolor data of a 114 arcmin2 area in the Subaru/XMM Deep Survey Field. By fitting template spectra of old ellipticals (OEs) and young, dusty starbursts (DSs) to the multicolor data, we classify EROs into these two classes and estimate their redshifts. We find that 58% of the EROs in our...

New ground-based and HST observations of distant clusters make it possible to trace the history of E/S0 galaxies to lookback times of ~10 $h_{50}^{-1}$ Gyr. The data strongly favor a scenario in which cluster ellipticals formed very early with a narrow spread in ages. By z = 1.2 there are changes in color and luminosity consistent with simple passive evolution, but even at that redshift the galaxies appear mature, with red colors suggesting ages of several Gyr. Apparently we ...

We show that the UV flux of old stellar systems can tell us about their ages. Two independent populations synthesis groups that have had wildly different views have here worked together and generated two solutions that can be easily tested using space telescopes. Proposed tests will constrain the ages of giant Es, that are often considered the oldest populations in the universe, and thus cosmology.

This work presents high $S/N$ spectroscopic observations of a representative sample of nearby elliptical galaxies. These observations provide a strong test of models for the formation of elliptical galaxies and their star formation histories. Combining these data with the Gonzalez (1993) data set, a volume limited sample of 45 galaxies has been defined. Results are in agreement with previous studies: the existence of the metallicity hyper-plane and the Z-plane of Trager et al...