Title: M31AGES: Studying the intermediate-aged populations in the satellites, smooth halo, and 
substructure of Andromeda

Abstract: 
Recent large-scale surveys of M31 have enabled the study of its satellites, smooth halo, and 
substructure in exquisite detail. In particular, the Spectroscopic Landscape of 
Andromeda''s Stellar Halo (SPLASH) survey has obtained moderate resolution optical spectra 
with the DEIMOS spectrograph on the Keck II/10-m telescope, and optical photometry from 
various ground-based telescopes. These data have been used to map the kinematics and 
metallicity distributions in the dSphs and dEs, detect and characterize substructure, and study 
the large-scale radial surface brightness and metallicity profiles of the "smooth" halo. In spite of 
these advances, there are a number of outstanding questions that cannot be answered with 
these data alone, including the fraction of the halo that was formed in situ vs by accretion, and 
the degeneracy between early and recent accretion events. The M31 Asymptotic Giant 
Extended Survey (M31AGES) aims to address these questions by using NIR photometry to 
identify intermediate-age AGB stars in the satellites, streams, and smooth halo of M31. We 
present the details of the observations (now completed), the plan for public release of data 
products, and preliminary results.