On the last day of Willman's workshop, Raja Guhathakurta (UCSC) led a very nice discussion of what we know about M31 structure, substructure, and ongoing mergers. The age and metallicity of the infalling stream, apparently, is very similar to that of the bulge. He also showed that the bulge of M31 looks more like a n=2 Sérsic profile than a de Vaucouleurs, confirming my suspicions about bulge/disk decomposition for more distant galaxies. Indeed, he showed that the separation of bulge, disk, and halo is not at all easy for M31.
After reading this post, I feel I know much more about M31 than about how to pronounce Raja's last name.
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