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

Speaker: Professor Meng Gu (Department of Astronomy, Tsinghua University)

Time: 9:30am, August 17, 2026

Location: 3-302, PMO Xianlin Campus

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 can gain new insights into their star formation histories, stellar mass distributions, and dark matter content. In this talk, I will present recent results from the MASSIVE survey on the stellar IMF and its spatial variations in nearby early-type galaxies. I will also discuss recent stellar population studies of massive galaxies and their extended environments. Finally, I will preview studies of galaxies at earlier cosmic epochs enabled by observations with the James Webb Space Telescope.