Speaker: Jakob Walcher, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
Abstract: Ironically, while the predictions on the dark side of the cosmological "concordance" model LambdaCDM are well understood theoretically, many open questions in cosmology and galaxy evolution revolve around the difficult physics of the luminous, baryonic matter. The Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area Survey (CALIFA) is designed to study the baryonic physics of nearby galaxies by providing integral field spectroscopic data cubes in the optical wavelength domain of 600 galaxies of all morphological types. I will present the survey, show the current status, describe the science potential and advertise recent science results. Science results to be shown address a number of topics, among them 1) the powering mechanism of so-called LINER galaxies, 2) the origin of the mas-metallicity relationship, 3) baryonic vs. total matter content, 4) mass build-up of stars over the history of the univers