We suggest and verify a new photometric method enabling derivation of relative thickness of a galactic disk from two-dimensional surface-brightness distribution of the galaxy in the plane of the sky. The method is applied to images of 45 early-type (
S0-Sb) galaxies with known radial exponential or double-exponential (with a flatter outer profile) surface-brightness distributions. The data in the r-band have been retrieved from the SDSS archive. Statistics of the estimated relative thicknesses of the stellar disks of early-type disk galaxies shows the following features. The disks of lenticular and early-type spiral galaxies have similar thicknesses. The presence of a bar results in only a slight marginal increase of the thickness. However, we have found a substantial difference between the thicknesses of the disks with a single-scaled exponential brightness profile and the disks that represent the inner segments of the Type III (antitruncated) profiles. The disks are significantly thicker in the former subsample than in the latter one. This may provide evidence for a surface-brightness distribution of a single-scaled exponential disk to be formed due to viscosity effects acting over the entire period of star formation in the disk.
We review our current knowledge about a particular case of decoupled gas kinematics -- inner ionized-gas polar disks. Though more difficult to be noticed, they seem to be more numerous than their large-scale counterparts; our recent estimates imply a
bout 10 per cent of early-type disk galaxies to be hosts of inner polar disks. Since in the most cases the kinematics of the inner polar gaseous disks is decoupled from the kinematics of the outer large-scale gaseous disks and since they nested around very old stellar nuclei, we speculate that the inner polar disks may be relics of very early events of external gas accretion several Gyr ago. Such view is in agreement with our new paradigm of the disk galaxies evolution.
By means of panoramic spectroscopy at the SAO RAS BTA telescope, we investigated the properties of stellar populations in the central regions of five early-type galaxies -- the NGC 524 group members. The evolution of the central regions of galaxies l
ooks synchronized: the average age of stars in the bulges of all the five galaxies lies in the range of 3--6 Gyr. Four of the five galaxies revealed synchronized bursts of star formation in the nuclei 1--2 Gyr ago. The only galaxy, in which the ages of stellar population in the nucleus and in the bulge coincide (i.e. the nuclear burst of star formation did not take place) is NGC 502, the farthest from the center of the group of all the galaxies studied.
By studying the stellar population properties along the radius in 15 nearby S0 galaxies, I have found that the outer stellar disks are mostly old, with the SSP-equivalent ages of 8-15 Gyr, being often older than the bulges. This fact puts into doubt
a currently accepted paradigm that S0 galaxies have formed at z=0.4 by quenching star formation in spiral galaxies.
By using the public UV imaging data obtained by the GALEX (Galaxy Ultraviolet Explorer) for nearby galaxies, we have compiled a list of lenticular galaxies possessing ultraviolet rings - starforming regions tightly confined to particular radial dista
nces from galactic centers. We have studied large-scale structure of these galaxies in the optical bands by using the data of the SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey): we have decomposed the galactic images into large-scale disks and bulges, have measured the ring optical colours from the residual images after subtracting model disks and bulges, and have compared the sizes of the rings in the optical light and in the UV-band. The probable origin of the outer starforming ring appearances in unbarred galaxies demonstrating otherwise the regular structure and homogeneously old stellar population beyond the rings is discussed.
We have investigated the stellar population properties in the central regions of a sample of lenticular galaxies with bars and single-exponential outer stellar disks using the data from the SAURON integral-field spectrograph retrieved from the open I
saac Newton Group Archive. We have detected chemically decoupled compact stellar nuclei with a metallicity twice that of the stellar population in the bulges in seven of the eight galaxies. A starburst is currently going on at the center of the eighth galaxy and we have failed to determine the stellar population properties from its spectrum. The mean stellar ages in the chemically decoupled nuclei found range from 1 to 11 Gyr. The scenarios for the origin of both decoupled nuclei and lenticular galaxies as a whole are discussed.
The results of photometric decomposition of surface brightness distributions in 85 early-type unbarred galaxies are presented. The SDSS r-images are analysed. Double-tiered exponential disks are found in all galaxies which are studied; the statistics of the disk parameters is derived.
I present some results of 3D spectroscopy for a small sample of dwarf elliptical galaxies, mostly members of small groups. The galaxies under consideration have a typical absolute magnitude of -18 (B-band), and at the Kormendys relation they settle w
ithin a transition zone between the main cloud of giant ellipticals and the sequence of diffuse ellipticals. By measuring Lick indices and investigating radial profiles of the SSP-equivalent ages and metallicities of the stellar populations in their central parts, I have found evolutionary distinct cores in all of them. Typically, the ages of these cores are 2-4 Gyr, and the metallicities are higher than the solar one. Outside the cores, the stellar populations are always old, T>12 Gyr, and the metallicities are subsolar. This finding implies that the well-known correlation between the stellar age and the total mass (luminosity) of field ellipticals (Trager et al. 2000, Caldwell et al. 2003, Howell 2005) may be in fact a direct consequence of a larger contribution of nuclear starbursts into the integrated stellar population in dwarfs with respect to giants, and does not relate to `downsizing.
Using the method of integral-field (3D) spectroscopy, we have investigated the kinematics and distribution of the gas and stars at the center of the early-type spiral galaxy with a medium scale bar NGC 7177 as well as the change in the mean age of th
e stellar population along the radius. A classical picture of radial gas inflow to the galactic center along the shock fronts delineated by dust concentration at the leading edges of the bar has been revealed. The gas inflow is observed down to a radius R = 1.5 -- 2, where the gas flows at the inner Lindblad resonance concentrate in an azimuthally highly inhomogeneous nuclear star formation ring. The bar in NGC 7177 is shown to be thick in z coordinate; basically, it has already turned into a pseudo-bulge as a result of secular dynamical evolution. The mean stellar age inside the star formation ring, in the galactic nucleus, is old, ~10 Gyr. Outside, at a distance R = 6 - 8 from the nucleus, the mean age of the stellar population is ~2 Gyr. If we agree that the bar in NGC 7177 is old, then, obviously, the star formation ring has migrated radially inward in the last 1-2 Gyr, in accordance with the predictions of some dynamical models.
We have studied the central parts of seven early-type galaxies -- the members of the X-ray-bright galaxy group NGC 80 -- by means of integral-field spectroscopy at the Russian 6m telescope. We searched for signatures of synchronous evolution of the g
roup galaxies. The following results have been obtained. Five galaxies have revealed old stellar populations in the bulges, with the SSP-equivalent ages from 10 to 15 Gyr. A moderate-luminous S0 galaxy IC 1548 demonstrates consequences of recent star formation burst: the SSP-equivalent age of the bulge is 3 Gyr, that of the nucleus -- 1.5 Gyr. It is also in this galaxy that we have found a circumnuclear polar gaseous disk which changes smoothly to counterrotating one at radii larger than 3 arcsec(1 kpc). Probably, IC 1548 had suffered an interaction with external gas accretion which might also provoke the central star formation burst. In the giant E0 galaxy NGC 83 which is projected close to the group center but has a line-of-sight velocity redshifted by 600 km/s with respect to the group systemic velocity, we have observed a compact massive stellar-gaseous disk with the radius of some 2 kpc demonstrating current star formation. Consequently, NGC 83, just as IC 1548, has the young stellar population in the center. We speculate that a small subgroup leaded by NGC 83 is in process of infalling into the old massive group around NGC 80.
