Title:
Integral field spectroscopy: a powerful tool to
Authors:
Villar-Martin et al.
Abstract:
Powerful radio galaxies are associated with extended
regions of ionized gas, with spatial scales of several kpc to >100 kpc.
The origin of this gas, internal (via cooling flows) or external (via
galaxy mergers/interactions) has been investigated for more than 20 years
with inconclusive results. To date, conclusions have been mainly based on
kinematic patterns and emission line morphologies derived from long-slit
spectra and shallow narrow band images. They are therefore subject to
large uncertainties. IFS is an essential technique to improve our
understanding ot the kinematic, ionization and morphological properties
of these extended regions of ionized gas around radio galaxies at
different redshifts, and, as a consequence, their origin and the formation
process of the galaxy. I shall present
the main scientific goals and working strategy for this project, based
on IFS techniques, as well as
preliminary results already obtained with VIMOS-VLT
(integral field unit).