No Arabic abstract
Using the unique dataset obtained within the course of the SAURON project, a radically new view of the structure, dynamics and stellar populations of early-type galaxies has emerged. We show that galaxies come in two broad flavours (slow and fast rotators), depending on whether or not they exhibit clear large-scale rotation, as indicated via a robust measure of the specific angular momentum of baryons. This property is also linked with other physical characteristics of early-type galaxies, such as: the presence of dynamically decoupled cores, orbital structure and anisotropy, stellar populations and dark matter content. I here report on the observed link between this baryonic angular momentum and a mass sequence, and how this uniquely relates to the building of the red sequence via dissipative/dissipationless mergers and secular evolution.
We present the study of the colour-magnitude diagram of the cluster Abell 2151 (A2151), with a particular focus on the low-mass end. The deep spectroscopy with AF2/WYFFOS@WHT and the caustic method enable us to obtain 360 members within 1.3 R_200 and absolute magnitude M_r < M*_r+6. This nearby cluster shows a well defined red sequence up to M_r ~ - 18.5; at fainter magnitudes only 36% of the galaxies lie on the extrapolation of the red sequence. We compare the red sequences of A2151 and Abell 85, which is another nearby cluster with similar spectroscopic data, but with different mass and dynamical state. Both clusters show similar red sequences at the bright end (M_r < -19.5), whereas large differences appear at the faint end. This result suggests that the reddening of bright galaxies is independent of environment, unlike the dwarf population (M_r > -18.0).
We use ~8,600 >5e10 Msol COSMOS galaxies to study how the morphological mix of massive ellipticals, bulge-dominated disks, intermediate-bulge disks, bulge-less disks and irregular galaxies evolves from z=0.2 to z=1. The morphological evolution depends strongly on mass. At M>3e11 Msol, no evolution is detected in the morphological mix: ellipticals dominate since z=1, and the Hubble sequence has quantitatively settled down by this epoch. At the 1e11 Msol mass scale, little evolution is detected, which can be entirely explained with major mergers. Most of the morphological evolution from z=1 to z=0.2 takes place at masses 5e10 - 1e11 Msol, where: (i) The fraction of spirals substantially drops and the contribution of early-types increases. This increase is mostly produced by the growth of bulge-dominated disks, which vary their contribution from ~10% at z=1 to >30% at z=0.2 (cf. the elliptical fraction grows from ~15% to ~20%). Thus, at these masses, transformations from late- to early-types result in disk-less elliptical morphologies with a statistical frequency of only 30% - 40%. Otherwise, the processes which are responsible for the transformations either retain or produce a non-negligible disk component. (ii) The bulge-less disk galaxies, which contribute ~15% to the intermediate-mass galaxy population at z=1, virtually disappear by z=0.2. The merger rate since z=1 is too low to account for the disappearance of these massive bulge-less disks, which most likely grow a bulge via secular evolution.
The Hubble sequence is a common classification scheme for the structure of galaxies. Despite the tremendous usefulness of this diagnostic, we still do not fully understand when, where, and how this morphological ordering was put in place. Here, we investigate the morphological evolution of a sample of 22 high redshift ($zgeq3$) galaxies extracted from the Argo simulation. Argo is a cosmological zoom-in simulation of a group-sized halo and its environment. It adopts the same high resolution ($sim10^4$ M$_odot$, $sim100$ pc) and sub-grid physical model that was used in the Eris simulation but probes a sub-volume almost ten times bigger with as many as 45 million gas and star particles in the zoom-in region. Argo follows the early assembly of galaxies with a broad range of stellar masses ($log M_{star}/{rm M}_{odot}sim8-11$ at $zsimeq3$), while resolving properly their structural properties. We recover a diversity of morphologies, including late-type/irregular disc galaxies with flat rotation curves, spheroid dominated early-type discs, and a massive elliptical galaxy, already established at $zsim3$. We identify major mergers as the main trigger for the formation of bulges and the steepening of the circular velocity curves. Minor mergers and non-axisymmetric perturbations (stellar bars) drive the bulge growth in some cases. The specific angular momenta of the simulated disc components fairly match the values inferred from nearby galaxies of similar $M_{star}$ once the expected redshift evolution of disc sizes is accounted for. We conclude that morphological transformations of high redshift galaxies of intermediate mass are likely triggered by processes similar to those at low redshift and result in an early build-up of the Hubble sequence.
We study the formation of early-type galaxies through mergers with a sample of 70 high-resolution (softening length < 60 pc and 12*10^6 particles) numerical simulations of binary mergers of disc galaxies and 16 simulations of ETG remergers. These simulations, designed to accompany observations and models conducted within the Atlas3D project, encompass various mass ratios (from 1:1 to 6:1), initial conditions and orbital parameters. The progenitor disc galaxies are spiral-like with bulge to disc ratios typical of Sb and Sc galaxies. We find that binary mergers of disc galaxies with mass ratios of 3:1 and 6:1 are nearly always classified as Fast Rotators according to the Atlas3D criterion (based on the lambda_R parameter): they preserve the structure of the input fast rotating spiral progenitors. They have intrinsic ellipticities larger than 0.5, cover intrinsic lambda_R values between 0.2 and 0.6, within the range of observed Fast Rotators. Major disc mergers (mass ratios of 2:1 and 1:1) lead to both Fast and Slow Rotators. Most of the Fast Rotators produced in major mergers have intermediate flattening, with ellipticities between 0.4 and 0.6. Most Slow Rotators formed in these binary disc mergers hold a stellar Kinematically Distinct Core (KDC) in their 1-3 central kilo-parsec: these KDCs are built from the stellar components of the progenitors. Besides a handful of specific observed systems -- the counter-rotating discs (2-sigma galaxies) -- these therefore cannot reproduce the observed population of Slow Rotators in the nearby Universe. The mass ratio of the progenitors is a fundamental parameter for the formation of Slow Rotators in these binary mergers, but it also requires a retrograde spin for the earlier-type (Sb) progenitor galaxy with respect to the orbital angular momentum. (Abridged)
One quarter of all nearby early-type galaxies (ETGs) outside Virgo host a disc/ring of HI with size from a few to tens of kpc and mass up to ~1e+9 solar masses. Here we investigate whether this HI is related to the presence of a stellar disc within the host making use of the classification of ETGs in fast and slow rotators (FR/SR). We find a large diversity of HI masses and morphologies within both families. Surprisingly, SRs are detected as often, host as much HI and have a similar rate of HI discs/rings as FRs. Accretion of HI is therefore not always linked to the growth of an inner stellar disc. The weak relation between HI and stellar disc is confirmed by their frequent kinematical misalignment in FRs, including cases of polar and counterrotating gas. In SRs the HI is usually polar. This complex picture highlights a diversity of ETG formation histories which may be lost in the relative simplicity of their inner structure and emerges when studying their outer regions. We find that LCDM hydrodynamical simulations have difficulties reproducing the HI properties of ETGs. The gas discs formed in simulations are either too massive or too small depending on the star formation feedback implementation. Kinematical misalignments match the observations only qualitatively. The main point of conflict is that nearly all simulated FRs and a large fraction of all simulated SRs host corotating HI. This establishes the HI properties of ETGs as a novel challenge to simulations.