Stellar Disks in Early-Type Galaxies (original) (raw)
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Morphology and surface photometry of a sample of isolated early-type galaxies from deep imaging
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Context. Isolated early-type galaxies are evolving in unusually poor environments for this morphological family, which is typical of cluster inhabitants. We investigate the mechanisms driving the evolution of these galaxies. Aims. Several studies indicate that interactions, accretions, and merging episodes leave their signature on the galaxy structure, from the nucleus down to the faint outskirts. We focus on revealing such signatures, if any, in a sample of isolated early-type galaxies, and we quantitatively revise their galaxy classification. Methods. We observed 20 (out of 104) isolated early-type galaxies, selected from the AMIGA catalog, with the 4KCCD camera at the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey g and r bands. These are the deepest observations of a sample of isolated early-type galaxies so far: on average, the light profiles reach μg ≈ 28.11 ± 0.70 mag arcsec−2 and μr ≈ 27.36 ± 0.68 mag arcsec−2. The analysis was performed using the AIDA...
Probing the Merger History of Red Early-Type Galaxies with Their Faint Stellar Substructures
2010
Several detailed observations, such as those carried out at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), have revealed prominent Low Surface Brightness (LSB) fine structures that lead to a change in the apparent morphology of galaxies. Previous photometry surveys have developed observational techniques which make use of the diffuse light detected in the external regions of galaxies. In these studies, the outer perturbations have been identified and classified. These include tidal tails, stellar streams, and shells. These structures serve as tracers for interacting events and merging events and retain some memory of the mass assembly of galaxies. Cosmological numerical simulations are required to estimate their visibility timescale, among other properties, in order to reconstruct the merger history of galaxies. In the present work, we analyze a hydrodynamical cosmological simulation to build up a comprehensive interpretation of the properties of fine structures. We present a census of several types of LSB fine structures compiled using a visual inspection of individual snapshots at various points in time. We reconstruct the evolution of the number of fine structures detected around an early-type galaxy and we compare it with the merger history of the galaxy. We find that most fine structures are associated with major and intermediate mass merger events. Their survival timescale ranges between 0.7 and 4 Gyr. Shells and streams remain visible for a longer time, while tidal tails have a shorter lifetime. These estimates for the survival time of collisional debris provide clues for the interpretation of the shape and frequency of fine structures observed in deep images with regard to their mass assembly. We find that the detectability of stellar streams is most sensitive at the surface brightness limit, demonstrating greater visibility at the deepest surface brightness level used in our simulation. We see between two and three times more streams based on a surface brightness cut of 33 mag arcsec −2 than with 29 mag arcsec −2. We find that the detection of shells is strongly dependent upon the projection angle.
Stellar disks and embedded bars in early-type galaxies
Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, 1998
We present photometric disk-bulge decompositions of 28 southern early-type galaxies with types T < −3 in either the RC3 or ESO-Lauberts & Valentijn catalogues. The decomposition method applied here is based on that developed by Scorza & Bender (1995) but the improved version allows for arbitrary surface brightness profiles of the disk models. We find three types of objects in this sample: bulge-dominated systems, with fully embedded close to edge-on disks; disk-dominated close to edgeon objects and objects with barred disks being modestly inclined down to face-on. Like in Scorza & Bender (1995), the analysis made here indicates that the superposition of a thin disk and an elliptical bulge can give good account for the morphology of most of the galaxies. We find the disks to have a diversity of surface brightness profiles, the most frequent case being that of a disk with an exponential profile, which becomes steeper at small radii. After disk subtraction, the bulges follow more closely the r 1/4 law. Five of the galaxies show signatures of embedded bar components. These have flat surface brightness profiles at small radii and rectangular shape, which are typical features of barred early-type galaxies. We find that the properties of the galaxies, most notably the disk-to-total ratio, correlates only modestly with the original classification of the galaxies.
Brought to Light. I. Quantification of Disk Substructure in Dwarf Early-type Galaxies
The Astronomical Journal, 2021
Dwarf early-type galaxies (ETGs) display a rich diversity in their photometric, structural, and dynamical properties. In this work, we address their structural complexity by studying with deep imaging a sample of nine dwarf ETGs from the Virgo galaxy cluster, characterized by having faint disk features such as bars and spiral arms, that lie mostly hidden within the bright diffuse light of the galaxies. We present a new, robust method that aims to identify and extract the disk substructure embedded in these dwarf ETGs. The method consists in an iterative procedure that gradually separates a galaxy image into two components: the bright, dominant, diffuse component, and the much fainter, underlying disk component. By applying it to the dwarf ETG sample, we quantify their disk substructure and find that its relative contribution to the total galaxy light ranges between 2.2% and 6.4% within two effective radii. We test the reliability of the method, and prove that it is accurate in recov...
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2015
We present a new morphological indicator designed for automated recognition of galaxies with faint asymmetric tidal features suggestive of an ongoing or past merger. We use the new indicator, together with pre-existing diagnostics of galaxy structure to study the role of galaxy mergers in inducing (post-) starburst spectral signatures in local galaxies, and investigate whether (post-) starburst galaxies play a role in the build-up of the 'red sequence'. Our morphological and structural analysis of an evolutionary sample of 335 (post-) starburst galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7 with starburst ages 0 < t SB < 0.6 Gyr, shows that 45 per cent of galaxies with young starbursts (t SB < 0.1 Gyr) show signatures of an ongoing or past merger. This fraction declines with starburst age, and we find a good agreement between automated and visual classifications. The majority of the oldest (post-) starburst galaxies in our sample (t SB ∼ 0.6 Gyr) have structural properties characteristic of early-type discs and are not as highly concentrated as the fully quenched galaxies commonly found on the 'red sequence' in the present day Universe. This suggests that, if (post-) starburst galaxies are a transition phase between active star-formation and quiescence, they do not attain the structure of presently quenched galaxies within the first 0.6 Gyr after the starburst.
Distinguishing Mergers and Disks in High-redshift Observations of Galaxy Kinematics
The Astrophysical Journal, 2019
The majority of massive star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 2 have velocity gradients suggestive of rotation, in addition to large amounts of disordered motions. In this paper, we demonstrate that it is challenging to distinguish the regular rotation of a disk galaxy from the orbital motions of merging galaxies with seeing-limited data. However, the merger fractions at z ∼ 2 are likely too low for this to have a large effect on measurements of disk fractions. To determine how often mergers pass for disks, we look to galaxy formation simulations. We analyze ∼24000 synthetic images and kinematic maps of 31 high-resolution simulations of isolated galaxies and mergers at z ∼ 2. We determine if the synthetic observations pass criteria commonly used to identify disk galaxies, and whether the results are consistent with their intrinsic dynamical states. Galaxies that are intrinsically mergers pass the disk criteria for anywhere from 0 to 100% of sightlines. The exact percentage depends strongly on the specific disk criteria adopted, and weakly on the separation of the merging galaxies. Therefore, one cannot tell with certainty whether observations of an individual galaxy indicate a merger or a disk. To estimate the fraction of mergers passing as disks in current kinematics samples, we combine the probability that a merger will pass as a disk with theoretical merger fractions from a cosmological simulation. Taking the latter at face-value, the observed disk fractions are overestimated by small amounts: at most by 5% at high stellar mass (10 10−11 M) and 15% at low stellar mass (10 9−10 M).
A search for features in early-type galaxies
The Astronomical Journal, 1988
We have conducted a search for dust lanes, incipient stellar disks, bars, shells, and other deviations from elliptical symmetry in a sample of 159 early-type galaxies. The data are from the CCD surface-photometry survey of Djorgovski (1985a), for which the selection effects are well understood. The imageprocessing technique used is division by a purely elliptical model image, constructed from the surfacephotometry profiles for a given object (best-fit surface brightness, ellipticity, and position angle as functions of semimajor axis). Our sample contains 116 elliptical galaxies, 33 SO galaxies, and ten intermediate types. Some galaxies that might better be classified as "dusty ellipticals" (in that they contain no obvious stellar disk) are included among the SOs. Forty-two of the ellipticals (36%) either definitely or very likely contain dust, either in patches or in well-defined lanes or rings. Five of the E/SO galaxies (50%) also show possible or definite dust, as do 15 (47%) of the SOs. Three of the elliptical galaxies definitely contain stellar disks, with several more possible candidates. Thus, approximately 50% of the elliptical galaxies show "features" of some kind. The detection of features is dependent on the signal-to-noise ratio of the data, so these numbers represent lower limits. The presence of dust in the galaxies classified as ellipticals does not seem to depend on any intrinsic characteristic of the galaxy. The dusty ellipticals do seem to prefer low-density environments. The "elliptical" galaxies with disks tend to have higher ellipticities and larger two-wave Fourier residuals, an effect also described by Carter (1987). These galaxies may be preferentially found in higher-density environments, and may be lowerluminosity systems, but these statements are based on very small-number statistics (ten galaxies out of a total of 116), and no strong conclusions may be drawn. However, our results clearly further blur the distinction between ellipticals and SOs.
More evidence for hidden spiral and bar features in bright early-type dwarf galaxies
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2002
Following the discovery of spiral structure in IC 3328 (Jerjen et al. 2000), we present further evidence that a sizable fraction of bright early-type dwarfs in the Virgo cluster are genuine disk galaxies, or are hosting a disk component. Among a sample of 23 nucleated dwarf ellipticals and dS0s observed with the Very Large Telescope in B and R, we found another four systems exhibiting non-axisymmetric structures, such as a bar and/or spiral arms, indicative of a disk (IC 0783, IC 3349, NGC 4431, IC 3468). Particularly remarkable are the two-armed spiral pattern in IC 0783 and the bar and trailing arms in NGC 4431. For both galaxies the disk nature has recently been confirmed by a rotation velocity measurement (Simien & Prugniel 2002). Our photometric search is based on a Fourier decomposition method and a specific version of unsharp masking. Some "early-type" dwarfs in the Virgo cluster seem to be former late-type galaxies which were transformed to early-type morphology, e.g. by "harassment", during their infall to the cluster, while maintaining part of their disk structure.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2013
We analyse the morphological structures in galaxies of the ATLAS 3D sample by fitting a single Sérsic profile and decomposing all non-barred objects (180 of 260 objects) in two components parameterised by an exponential and a general Sérsic function. The aim of this analysis is to look for signatures of discs in light distributions of nearby early-type galaxies and compare them to kinematic properties. Using Sérsic index from single component fits for a distinction between slow and fast rotators, or even late-and early-type galaxies, is not recommended. Assuming that objects with n > 3 are slow rotators (or ellipticals), there is only a 22 per cent probability to correctly classify objects as slow rotators (or 37 per cent of previously classified as ellipticals). We show that exponential sub-components, as well as light profiles fitted with only a single component of a low Sérsic index, can be linked with the kinematic evidence for discs in early-type galaxies. The median disk-to-total light ratio for fast and slow rotators is 0.41 and 0.0, respectively. Similarly, the median Sérsic indices of the bulge (general Sérsic component) are 1.7 and 4.8 for fast and slow rotators, respectively. Overall, discs or disclike structures, are present in 83 per cent of early-type galaxies which do not have bars, and they show a full range of disk-to-total light ratios. Discs in early-type galaxies contribute with about 40 per cent to the total mass of the analysed (non-barred) objects. The decomposition into discs and bulges can be used as a rough approximation for the separation between fast and slow rotators, but it is not a substitute, as there is only a 59 per cent probability to correctly recognise slow rotators. We find trends between the angular momentum and the disc-to-total light ratios and the Sérsic index of the bulge, in the sense that high angular momentum galaxies have large disc-to-total light ratios and small bulge indices, but there is none between the angular momentum and the global Sérsic index. We investigate the inclination effects on the decomposition results and confirm that strong exponential profiles can be distinguished even at low inclinations, but medium size discs are difficult to quantify using photometry alone at inclinations lower than ∼ 50 • . Kinematics (i.e. projected angular momentum) remains the best approach to mitigate the influence of the inclination effects. We also find weak trends with mass and environmental density, where disc dominated galaxies are typically less massive and found at all densities, including the densest region sampled by the ATLAS 3D sample.
A Photometric Study of Giant Ellipticals and Their Stellar Halos With VST
Galaxies, 2017
Observations of diffuse starlight in the outskirts of galaxies are thought to be a fundamental source of constraints on the cosmological context of galaxy assembly in the ΛCDM model. Such observations are not trivial because of the extreme faintness of such regions. In this work, we investigated the photometric properties of six massive early-type galaxies (ETGs) in the VST Elliptical GAlaxies Survey (VEGAS) sample (NGC 1399, NGC 3923, NGC 4365, NGC 4472, NGC 5044, and NGC 5846) out to extremely low surface brightness levels with the goal of characterizing the global structure of their light profiles for comparison to state-of-the-art galaxy formation models. We carried out deep and detailed photometric mapping of our ETG sample taking advantage of deep imaging with VST/OmegaCAM in the g and i bands. By fitting the light profiles, and comparing the results to simulations of elliptical galaxy assembly, we have identified signatures of a transition between relaxed and unrelaxed accreted components and can constrain the balance between in situ and accreted stars. The very good agreement of our results with predictions from theoretical simulations demonstrates that the full VEGAS sample of ∼ 100 ETGs will allow us to use the distribution of diffuse light as a robust statistical probe of the hierarchical assembly of massive galaxies.