Laure Ciesla — Spectral Energy Distribution of Galaxies: a tool to probe their star formation histories

With the wealth of ancillary data available in large domains of the 
spectrum (GALEX, HST, CFHT, Spitzer, Herschel, etc), panchromatic studies of 
galaxies are thus one of the keys to understand how galaxies evolved since their 
formation. After describing the assets of spectral energy distributions (SED) 
analysis and explaining how we can model them, I will discuss the star formation history of the 
bulk of galaxies and show with a concrete case how we can identify and characterize galaxies 
than underwent a rapid star formation quenching with a sample of well-known local galaxies, the Herschel 
Reference Survey. This sample contains galaxies from the field but also from the 
dense environment of the Virgo cluster. From this pilot study, I will go to 
higher redshifts in order to blindly identify sources that have just been 
quenched using CANDELS/GOODS-South data and try to identify possible causes for 
this.