Abstract
Reconstructing the formation and assembly history of galaxies is critical to astrophysics. Early-type galaxies (ETGs) give us a unique window to achieve this goal. Recent progress in stellar population synthesis (SPS) models has pushed us far beyond the "age and metallicity" era. Detailed element abundance patterns and initial mass function (IMF) extracted from the integrated light of ETGs significantly deepen our understanding of the star formation and assembly history of ETGs, the essential stellar mass measurement, and their dark matter content. I will present stellar population studies of massive galaxies and their surrounding environments, including the scaling relations between stellar mass and stellar population properties from observation and simulation sides, with implications for the connection between the environments and the growth and quenching of surrounding galaxies. I will present novel measurements on the global and local stellar IMF in nearby massive galaxies in the MASSIVE survey, the relations with global galaxy properties and stellar populations, and discuss the implications for the physical processes driving low-mass IMF variation and the impact on mass measurement. I will preview lookback studies that will soon be feasible with the new facilities, such as the Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Anyone interested is welcome to attend.