A SAURON study of dwarf elliptical galaxies in the Virgo Cluster

Dwarf elliptical galaxies are the most common galaxy type in nearby galaxy clusters, yet they remain relatively poorly studied objects and many of their basic properties have yet to be quantified. In this contribution we present the preliminary results of a study of 4 Virgo and 1 field galaxy obtained with the SAURON integral field unit on the William Herschel Telescope (La Palma). While traditional long-slit observations are likely to miss more complicated kinematic features, with SAURON we are able to study both kinematics and stellar populations in two dimensions, obtaining a much more detailed view of the mass distribution and star formation histories.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure; to appear in the proceedings of the conference "A Universe of dwarf galaxies" (Lyon, June 14-18, 2010

Characterizing stellar populations in spiral disks

It is now possible to measure detailed spectral indices for stellar populations in spiral disks. We propose to interpret these data using evolutionary synthesis models computed from the Star Formation Histories obtained from chemical evolutionary models. We find that this technique is a powerful tool to discriminate between old and young stellar populations. We show an example of the power of Integral Field spectroscopy in unveiling the spatial distribution of populations in a barred galaxy.Comment: 5 pages, to be published in "Science Perspectives for 3D Spectroscopy", Eds. M. Kissler-Patig, M.M. Roth and J.R. Walsh (Springer-Verlag, ESO astrophysics symposia series