Ionized Gas

Research area

Ionized gas in the interstellar medium can trace both massive star formation and AGN driven outflows. It is also the largest reservoir of baryons in the intergalactic medium. The Ionized gas group is mainly focusing on star formation and quenching in galaxy evolution, including gas outflow driven by star formation or AGN feedback, gas kinematics, star formation and chemical evolution, IFU spatially resolved imaging spectroscopy. Various optical spectral diagnostics are applied to study star formation and quenching, the role of AGN activity and dynamical process like bulge formation and bar activity.

Figure 1. Based on optical IFU survey from SDSS-IV MaNGA, we examine the resolved properties of both stellar component and emission of ionized gas in massive spiral galaxies, from starburst galaxies to passive galaxies. The gradual appearance of LINER-like emission in the central regions of the galaxy with a predominant bulge component in the transitional galaxies and quenched galaxies indicate that the negative feedback from low-luminosity AGN and dynamical processes caused by bulge and/or bar may play an important role in star formation quenching (Guo et al. 2018 ApJ. submitted)