Eric's Research Page
Eric Bell : Research Interests
Broadly speaking, I am interested in trying to learn about
the formation and evolution of galaxies. In this page,
I give a broad description of the areas I work on, a link
to electronic data which have been made public,
a full listing of my
submitted and refereed research papers, a selection
of one or two conference proceedings which contain information
not already in a paper, and finally some press releases I was heavily
involved in.
My main line of research is in trying to empirically chart the evolution
of the massive galaxy population since redshift one, i.e., roughly 8 billion
years in the past. Because of the expansion of the Universe and the finite
speed of light, astronomers can chart the evolution of the galaxy population by
looking at the properties of galaxies at different redshifts=distances=epochs.
Important points include:
- Roughly 60% of all stars formed in the 5.5 billion years before redshift one; the other
40% have been formed in the 8 billion years since.
The reasons for this dramatic slow-down in the rate of
formation of stars are not well-understood, and are an active area
of research. It looks likely that this decline in star formation
rate is partially driven by
galaxies running out of cold gas --- the fuel
for star formation.
- An increasingly large fraction of massive galaxies no longer form stars
at all. The number of such `old, red and dead' galaxies roughly doubles
in the last eight billion years. The reasons for this are somewhat unclear;
it is suspected that outflows driven by accreting supermassive black holes
stops gas cooling and/or drives out the gas, suppressing star formation.
- Galaxies are cannibals. It is likely that a large fraction of massive
galaxies undergo a major merger --- a gravitational interaction in which
two previously separate galaxies become one more massive galaxy ---
in the last eight billion years. These galaxy mergers may be
the event that triggers supermassive black hole accretion, leading
to the formation of old, red and dead galaxies. Furthermore,
the debris from minor mergers and accretions is common around
present-day galaxies, in agreement with the expectations of our
current picture of galaxy formation in a cosmological context.
Link to electronic versions of my data
PUBLICATIONS
- Submitted or in press
-
Testing a prediction of the merger origin of early-type galaxies:
a correlation between stellar populations and asymmetry
Zsuzsanna Gyory and Eric F. Bell: submitted to
The Astrophysical Journal
-
The evolution of the scatter of the field color-magnitude relation: Evidence for the hierarchical formation of elliptical galaxies
Christine Ruhland, Eric F. Bell, et al.: submitted to
The Astrophysical Journal
-
Interaction Rates, Star Formation History and Mass Assembly of
Galaxies over the last 7 Gyr
Shardha Jogee, Sarah H. Miller, et al.: submitted to
The Astrophysical Journal
-
The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
K. Abazajian et al.:
submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
-
The Rise of Massive Red Galaxies: the color-magnitude and color-stellar mass diagrams for z < ~2 from the MUltiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile (MUSYC)
Edward N. Taylor, Marijn Franx, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, in press
-
STAGES: The Space Telescope A901/2 Galaxy Evolution Survey
Meghan E. Gray, Christian Wolf, et al.:
The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in press
-
The STAGES view of red spirals and dusty red galaxies: Mass-dependent quenching of star-formation in cluster infall
Christian Wolf, Alfonso Aragon-Salamanca, et al.:
The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in press
-
Obscured star formation in intermediate-density environments:
A Spitzer study of the Abell 901/902 supercluster
Anna Gallazzi, Eric F. Bell et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, in press
-
The dust un-biased cosmic star formation history from the 20 cm VLA-COSMOS survey
Vernesa Smolcic, Eva Schinnerer, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, in press
- 2008
-
The Luminosity Function of the Milky Way Satellites
Servey Koposov, Vasily Belokurov, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 686, 279
-
The Milky Way's Circular Velocity Curve to 60 kpc and an Estimate of the Dark Matter Halo Mass from Kinematics of ~2400 SDSS Blue Horizontal Branch Stars
Xiang Xiang Xue, Hans-Walter Rix, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 684, 1143
-
Galaxy Bulges and their Black Holes: a Requirement for the Quenching of Star Formation
Eric F. Bell:
The Astrophysical Journal, 682, 355
-
Tracing the Mass-Dependent Star Formation History of Late-Type Galaxies using X-Ray Emission: Results from the Chandra Deep Fields
B. D. Lehmer, W. N. Brandt, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 681, 1163
-
The Structural Properties and Star Formation History of Leo T from Deep LBT Photometry
Jelte T. A. de Jong, Jason Harris, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 680, 1112
-
The Accretion Origin of the Milky Way's Stellar Halo
Eric F. Bell, Daniel B. Zucker, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 680, 295
-
The dark matter environment of the Abell 901/902 supercluster: a weak lensing analysis of the HST STAGES survey
Catherine Heymans, Meghan E. Gray, et al.:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 385, 1431
-
The Sixth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Adelman-McCarthy, Jennifer K., et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 175, 297
-
Numerical Color-Magnitude Diagram Analysis of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data and Application to the New Milky way Satellites
Jelte T. A. de Jong, Hans-Walter Rix, et al.:
The Astronomical Journal, 135, 1361
-
GEMS Survey Data and Catalog
John Caldwell, Daniel MacIntosh, et al.: The
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 174, 136
-
A Deep Large Binocular Telescope View of the Canes Venatici I Dwarf Galaxy
Nicolas F. Martin, Matthew G. Coleman, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 672, 13
-
An Explanation for the Observed Weak Size Evolution of Disk Galaxies
Rachel S. Somerville, Marco Barden, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 672, 776
- 2007
-
The Infrared Spectral Energy Distributions of z~0.7 Star-Forming Galaxies
Xian Zhong Zheng, Herve Dole, Eric F. Bell, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 670, 301
-
The Discovery of Two Extremely Low Luminosity Milky Way Globular Clusters
Sergey Koposov, Jelte T. A. de Jong, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 669, 337
-
Improved Photometry of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Crowded-Field Images: Structure and Dark Matter Content in the Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy Leo I
Vernesa Smolcic, Daniel B. Zucker, Eric F. Bell et al.:
The Astronomical Journal, 134, 1901
-
Environmental dependence of active galactic nuclei activity in the supercluster A901/2
Rachel Gilmour, Meghan E. Gray et al.:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 380, 1467
-
GEMS: Galaxy fitting catalogues and testing parametric galaxy fitting codes: GALFIT and GIM2D
Boris Haeussler, Daniel H. McIntosh, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 172, 615
-
The Elongated Structure of the Hercules Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy from Deep Large Binocular Telescope Imaging
Matthew G. Coleman, Jelte T. A. de Jong, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 668, 43
-
Stellar Populations across the NGC 4244 Truncated Galactic Disk
Roelof S. de Jong, Anil C. Seth, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 667, 49
-
Star Formation and The Growth of Stellar Mass
Eric F. Bell, Xian Zhong Zheng, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 663, 834
-
The Dependence of Star Formation on Galaxy Stellar Mass
Xian Zhong Zheng, Eric F. Bell, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 661, 41
-
Andromeda X, A New Dwarf Spheroidal Satellite of M31: Photometry
Daniel B. Zucker, Alexei Kniazev, et al.: The
Astrophysical Journal Letters, 659, 21
-
An Orphan in the Field of Streams
Vasily Belokurov, N. W. Evans, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 658, 337
-
The Hercules-Aquila Cloud
Vasily Belokurov, N. W. Evans, E. F. Bell, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 658, 337
-
The X-ray Properties of Early-Type Galaxies in the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South
Bret D. Lehmer, W. Neal Brandt, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 657, 681
-
Cats and Dogs, Hair and a Hero: A Quintet of New Milky Way Companions
Vasily Belokurov, Daniel B. Zucker, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 654, 897
- 2006
-
Nature and completeness of galaxies detected in the 2MASS
Daniel McIntosh, Eric Bell, et al.: The Monthly Notices
of the Royal Astronomical Society, 373, 1321
-
The merger rate of massive galaxies
Eric Bell, Stefanie Phleps, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 652, 270
-
A Curious Milky Way Satellite in Ursa Major
Daniel B. Zucker, Vasily Belokurov, et al.: The
Astrophysical Journal Letters, 650, 41
-
A weak lensing estimate from GEMS of the virial to stellar mass ratio in massive galaxies to z~0.8
Catherine Heymans, Eric F. Bell, et al.:
MNRAS Letters, 371, 60
-
A Faint New Milky Way Satellite in Bootes
Vasily Belokurov, Daniel B. Zucker, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 647, 111
-
The stellar masses of 25000 galaxies at redshifts less than one estimated by the COMBO-17 survey
Andrea Borch, Klaus Meisenheimer, Eric F. Bell, et al.:
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 453, 869
-
Very Small-Scale Clustering and Merger Rate of Luminous Red Galaxies
Morad Masjedi, David Hogg, et al.: The
Astrophysical
Journal, 644, 54
-
A New Milky Way Dwarf Satellite in Canes Venatici
Daniel B. Zucker, Vasily Belokurov, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 643, 103
-
Color, Structure, and Star Formation History of Dwarf Galaxies over the Last ~3 Gyr with GEMS and SDSS
Fabio Barazza, Shardha Jogee, et al.: The
Astrophysical Journal, 643, 162
-
The Field of Streams: Sagittarius and its Siblings
Vasily Belokurov, Daniel B. Zucker, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 642, 137
-
Detecting Faint Galaxies by Stacking at 24 microns
Xianzhong Zheng, Eric Bell, et al.: The
Astrophysical
Journal, 640, 784
-
Morphology
and star formation in nearby
low surface brightness galaxies
Robert Auld, W.J.G. de Blok, et al.:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 366, 1475
-
Dry Mergers in GEMS: The Dynamical Evolution of Massive Early-Type
Galaxies
Eric Bell, Thorsten Naab, et al.: The
Astrophysical Journal, 640, 241
-
The supernova rate-velocity dispersion relation in the interstellar
medium
Sami Dib, Eric F. Bell, and Andreas Burkert: The Astrophysical
Journal, 638, 797
- 2005
-
GEMS: The Surface Brightness and Surface Mass Density Evolution of
Disk Galaxies
Marco Barden, Hans-Walter
Rix, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 635, 959
-
Weak lensing studies from space with GEMS
Catherine Heymans, Michael Brown, et al.: New Astronomy Reviews,
49, 392
-
Dark Matter and Stellar Mass in the Luminous Regions of Disk Galaxies
James Pizagno, Francisco Prada, et al.: The Astrophysical
Journal, 633, 844
-
The Evolution of Early-type Red Galaxies with the GEMS Survey:
Luminosity-size and Stellar Mass-size Relations Since z=1
Daniel H. McIntosh,
Eric Bell, et al.: The
Astrophysical Journal, 631, 191
-
Infrared Luminosity Functions from the Chandra Deep Field-South: The
Spitzer View on the History of Dusty Star Formation at redshifts less than one
Emeric Le Floc'h, Casey Papovich, et al.: The
Astrophysical Journal, 632, 169
-
GEMS: In what type of galaxies do most stars form at z~0.7?
Christian Wolf, Eric Bell, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 630, 771
-
Cosmological weak lensing with the HST GEMS survey
Catherine Heymans, Michael L. Brown, et al.: Monthly Notices of the
Royal Astronomical Society, 361, 160
-
A Comprehensive Model for the Monoceros Tidal Stream
Jorge Penarrubia, David Martinez-Delgado, et al.:
The
Astrophysical Journal, 626, 128
-
Towards an understanding of the rapid decline of the cosmic
star formation rate
Eric Bell, Casey Papovich, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 625, 23
- 2004
-
Bar Evolution Over the Last Eight Billion Years:
A Constant Fraction of Strong Bars in GEMS
Shardha Jogee, F. D. Barazza, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 615, 105L
-
Colors of AGN host galaxies at intermediate redshift from GEMS
Sebastian Sanchez, Knud Jahnke, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 614, 586
-
UV light from young stars in GEMS quasar host galaxies at high redshift
Knud Jahnke, Sebastian Sanchez, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 614, 568
-
Andromeda IX: A New Dwarf Spheroidal Satellite of M31
Daniel Zucker, Alexei Kniazev, et al.:
Astrophysical Journal Letters, 612, 121
-
A New Giant Stellar Structure Near the Outer Halo of M31: Satellite or Stream?
Daniel Zucker, Alexei Kniazev, et al.:
Astrophysical Journal Letters, 612, 117
-
A catalogue of the Chandra Deep Field South with multi-colour classification and photometric redshifts from COMBO-17
Christian Wolf, Klaus Meisenheimer, et al.:
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 421, 913
-
Nearly 5000 Distant Early-Type Galaxies in COMBO-17: a Red Sequence
and its Evolution since z~1
Eric Bell, Christian Wolf, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 608, 752
-
GEMS: Galaxy Evolution from Morphology and SEDs
Hans-Walter Rix,
Marco Barden, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 152, 163
-
Structure of Disk-Dominated Galaxies: II. Color Gradients and
Stellar Population Models
Lauren MacArthur, Stephane Courteau, et al.:
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 152, 175
-
The Tilt of the Fundamental Plane: 3/4 structural non-homology, 1/4 stellar population
Ignacio Trujillo, Andreas Burkert, and
Eric Bell: The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 600, 39
-
GEMS Imaging of Red Sequence Galaxies at z~0.7: Dusty or Old?
Eric Bell, Daniel McIntosh, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 600, 11
- 2003
-
The Optical and Near-Infrared Properties of Galaxies: I. Luminosity
and Stellar Mass Functions
Eric F. Bell, Daniel H. McIntosh, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 149, 289
-
The properties of spiral galaxies: confronting hierarchical
galaxy formation models with observations
Eric Bell, Carlton Baugh, et al.: Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society, 343, 367
-
Estimating Star Formation Rates from Infrared
and Radio Luminosities: The Origin of the Radio-Infrared Correlation
Eric Bell:
The Astrophysical Journal, 586, 794
-
A First Estimate of the Baryonic Mass Function of Galaxies
Eric F. Bell, Daniel McIntosh, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 585, 117
- 2002
-
Exponential stellar disks in low surface brightness galaxies:
a critical test of viscous evolution
Eric Bell: The Astrophysical Journal, 581, 1013
-
On Measuring the Infrared Luminosity of Distant Galaxies with the Space Infrared Telescope Facility
Casey Papovich and Eric
Bell: The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 579, 1
-
Dust-induced systematic errors in ultraviolet-derived star formation
rates
Eric F. Bell: The Astrophysical Journal, 577, 150
-
The effects of dust in simple environments: Large
Magellanic Cloud HII regions
Eric Bell, Karl Gordon, et al.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 565, 994
- 2001
-
Stellar mass-to-light ratios and the Tully-Fisher relation
Eric Bell and Roelof S. de Jong: The Astrophysical Journal, 550, 212
-
A comparison of UIT far-ultraviolet and H-alpha star formation rates
Eric Bell and Robert Kennicutt:
The Astrophysical Journal, 548, 681
- 2000
-
Exploring the evolution of spiral galaxies
Eric Bell and Richard Bower:
MNRAS, 319, 235
-
The stellar populations of spiral galaxies
Eric Bell and Roelof de Jong:
MNRAS, 312, 497
-
The star formation histories of
low surface brightness galaxies
Eric Bell, David Barnaby, et al.: MNRAS, 312, 470
-
The bimodal spiral galaxy surface brightness distribution
Eric Bell and
W. J. G. de Blok: MNRAS , 311, 668
- 1999
-
The colour-magnitude relation of early-type galaxies in
the Hubble Deep Field
Tadayuki Kodama, Richard Bower, and Eric Bell:
MNRAS, 306, 561
-
The stellar populations of low surface brightness galaxies
Eric Bell, Richard Bower, et al.:
MNRAS, 302, 55L
-
A Bayesian classifier for photometric redshifts:
identification of high redshift clusters
Tadayuki Kodama, Eric Bell, and Richard Bower:
MNRAS, 302, 152
-
The estimation of seeing quality using low-resolution solar
image data
Eric Bell, Frank Hill and John Harvey:
Solar Physics, 185, 15
MOST IMPORTANT CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
-
The evolving disk galaxy population
Eric F. Bell: 2008, Invited Review at the Vatican Symposium: Formation and Evolution of Galaxy Disks, eds. Jose G. Funes, SJ and Enrico M. Corsini
-
Comparing Dynamical and Stellar Population Mass-to-Light Ratio Estimates
Roelof S. de Jong and Eric F. Bell: 2006, to appear in
Island Universes,
ed. R. de Jong
-
Galaxy Assembly
Eric F. Bell: 2004, invited review to appear in Planets to
Cosmology: Essential Science in Hubble's Final Years,
ed. M. Livio
-
HIROCS - a galaxy cluster survey at high redshifts
Sigfried Falter, H.-J. Roeser, et al.
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Properties of Dark Matter Halos in Disk Galaxies
Roelof S. de Jong,
Susan Kassin, et al.:
to appear in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 220 Dark matter in galaxies,
eds. S. Ryder, D. J. Pisano, M. Walker and K. Freeman
-
The morphology of nearby LSB galaxies
W. J. G. de Blok,
Fabian Walter
and Eric Bell: 1999,
Ap&SS, 269, 101
Press release for GEMS, the largest contiguous color HST image in existence
See articles in Science, Sky and Telescope, and Space.com.
Press release for Andromeda IX,
the least-luminous galaxy yet found.
See articles in Astronomy, MSNBC, Sky and Telescope.
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bell@mpia.de
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©2008 Eric Bell. Last modified 1st October 2008.
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