Dr Marc Sarzi

PhD (Padova University - Italy)

Marc Sarzi

Job title: University Research Fellow

Email Address: M.Sarzi@herts.ac.uk

Memberships and Appointments: Member of the Telescope Allocation Committee for the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes in November 2006

In the vast field of astrophysics research that concerns galaxy formation and evolution I have been focussing primarly on the role of supermassive black holes and how their mass came to be so tightly related to other global properties of their host galaxies, such as the total luminosity or mass. I have been also working on the structure of galactic nuclei and investigated their stellar populations. I am also investigating the interstellar medium of galaxies, in particular in the earlier type such as Elliptical and Lenticular galaxies where the origin and fate of the gas is still largely unknown.

Some of my most interesting achievements include (i) having demonstrated that ionised-gas kinematics can lead to robust black-hole mass measurements and that the bulges of disk galaxies (including barred) share the same black-hole mass budget of elliptical galaxies, (ii) having shown that the width of the nuclear gas emission can lead to tight upper-limits on the black-hole mass, (iii) having shown that the nuclei or low-luminosity active nuclei are dominated by old stellar populations, and finally (iv) having found that, contrary to popular belief, ionised-gas emission is almost ubiquitous in early-type galaxies and that it comes with an intriguing variety of distributions, kinematics and degrees of ionisation.

Research Interests

Galactic Nuclei - SuperMassive Black Holes and Active Nuclei - Stellar Populations and Interstellar Medium in Galaxies

Collaborations and Projects

Following up my Ph.D. work, I am one of the principal investigators of a collaboration that aims at completing the local census of supermassive black using cutting-edge adaptive optics technologies and modelling techniques. More details can be found here

I am a proud member of the SAURON collaboration, in which I am responsible for the efforts aimed at understanding nature the ionised-gas in early-type galaxies, using a sample of 48 objects probed through more than 34,000 individual spectra.

I am also leading the investigations linked to the interstellar medium of early-type galaxies in the newly started ATLAS3D survey, which will provide a complete panoramic view of the the local (within 40Mpc) early-type galaxy populations.

Finally I am the PI of a pilot project based on VLT data that aims at constraining the assembling history of early-type galaxy by studing the stellar population of their nuclear disks, a common component in this kind of galaxies.

You can find more details on these and other projects in my personal webpage