Looking into the faintest with MUSE: Integral-field spectroscopy of ultradiffuse galaxies in a cluster environment

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• Enrica Iodice
• Thursday 09 October 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Hoyle Lecture Theatre, Institute of Astronomy.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Jan Scholtz.

In this talk I would like to present the LEWIS project. Looking into the faintEst WIth MUSE (LEWIS) is an ESO large program, granted with 133.5hrs with MUSE @ESO-VLT., is the first homogeneous integral-field spectroscopic survey of 30 extremely low-surface-brightness (LSB) galaxies in the Hydra I cluster of galaxies, where the majority of LSB galaxies in the sample (22 in total) are ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs). Because of their LSB nature, getting spectroscopic data for UDGs is a challenging task. To date, as opposed to the availability of deep images, we still lack a statistically significant sample of UDGs with spectroscopy, which strongly limits our constraints and conclusions on their stellar populations and DM content. Doubling the number of spectroscopically studied UDGs, with the LEWIS project we will make a decisive impact in this field. With LEWIS we will map, for the first time, i) the 2D stellar kinematics, ii) the stellar population and iii) established the GC population and their specific frequency of a complete sample of UDGs in a galaxy cluster with IF spectroscopic data. The structural properties together with the baryonic versus DM fraction are used in comparison with hydrodynamical models of UDGs to establish their formation channels as a function of their location in the cluster. With LEWIS we are probing the MUSE capabilities to map the galaxy structure down to the faintest surface brightness levels.

This talk is part of the Institute of Astronomy Colloquia series.

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• Hoyle Lecture Theatre, Institute of Astronomy
• Institute of Astronomy Colloquia
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