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We perform spatially resolved stellar population analysis for a sample of 69 early-type galaxies (ETGs) from the CALIFA integral field spectroscopic survey, including 48 ellipticals and 21 S0's. We generate and quantitatively characterize profiles of light-weighted mean stellar age and metallicity within $\lesssim 2R_e$, as a function of radius and stellar-mass surface density $\mu_*$. We study in detail the dependence of profiles on galaxies' global properties, including velocity dispersion $\sigma_e$, stellar mass, morphology. ETGs are universally characterized by strong, negative metallicity gradients ($\sim -0.3\,\text{dex}$ per $R_e$) within $1\,R_e$, which flatten out moving towards larger radii. A quasi-universal local $\mu_*$-metallicity relation emerges, which displays a residual systematic dependence on $\sigma_e$, whereby higher $\sigma_e$ implies higher metallicity at fixed $\mu_*$. Age profiles are typically U-shaped, with minimum around $0.4\,R_e$, asymptotic increase to maximum ages beyond $\sim 1.5\,R_e$, and an increase towards the centre. The depth of the minimum and the central increase anti-correlate with $\sigma_e$. A possible qualitative interpretation of these observations is a two-phase scenario. In the first phase, dissipative collapse occurs in the inner $1\,R_e$, establishing a negative metallicity gradient. The competition between the outside-in quenching due to feedback-driven winds and some form of inside-out quenching, possibly caused by central AGN feedback or dynamical heating, determines the U-shaped age profiles. In the second phase, the accretion of ex-situ stars from quenched and low-metallicity satellites shapes the flatter stellar population profiles in the outer regions., Comment: Accepted version to appear in MNRAS. Improved discussion with respect to original submission and additional tests included

We present a methodology for the regularisation and combination of sparse sampled and irregularly gridded observations from fibre-optic multi-object integral-field spectroscopy. The approach minimises interpolation and retains image resolution on combining sub-pixel dithered data. We discuss the methodology in the context of the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral-field spectrograph (SAMI) Galaxy Survey underway at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The SAMI instrument uses 13 fibre bundles to perform high-multiplex integral-field spectroscopy across a one degree diameter field of view. The SAMI Galaxy Survey is targeting 3000 galaxies drawn from the full range of galaxy environments. We demonstrate the subcritical sampling of the seeing and incomplete fill factor for the integral-field bundles results in only a 10% degradation in the final image resolution recovered. We also implement a new methodology for tracking covariance between elements of the resulting datacubes which retains 90% of the covariance information while incurring only a modest increase in the survey data volume., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, Accepted MNRAS September 2014

One of the problems of producing instruments for Extremely Large Telescopes is that their size (and hence cost) scales rapidly with telescope aperture. To try to break this relation alternative new technologies have been proposed, such as the use of the Integrated Photonic Spectrograph (IPS). Due to their diffraction-limited nature the IPS is claimed to defeat the harsh scaling law applying to conventional instruments. In contrast to photonic applications, devices for astronomy are not usually used at the diffraction limit. Therefore to retain throughput and spatial information, the IPS requires a photonic lantern (PL) to decompose the input multimode light into single modes. This is then fed into either numerous Arrayed Waveguide Gratings (AWGs) or a conventional spectrograph. We investigate the potential advantage of using an IPS instead of conventional monolithic optics for a variety of capabilities represented by existing instruments and others planned for Extremely Large Telescopes. We show that a full IPS instrument is equivalent to an image-slicer. However, the requirement to decompose the input light into individual modes imposes a redundancy in terms of the numbers of components and detector pixels in many cases which acts to cancel out the advantage of the small size of the photonic components. However, there are specific applications where an IPS gives a potential advantage which we describe. Furthermore, the IPS approach has the potential advantage of minimising or eliminating bulk optics. We show that AWGs fed with multiple single-mode inputs from a PL require relatively bulky auxiliary optics and a 2-D detector array. A more attractive option is to combine the outputs of many AWGs so that a 1-D detector can be used to greatly reduce the number of detector pixels required and provide efficient adaptation to the curved output focal surface., 13 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 22 October 2012