Michele Cappellari

Abstract:

In order to try and understand its origins, we present high-quality long-slit spectral observations of the counter-rotating stellar discs in the strange S0 galaxy NGC 4550. We kinematically decompose the spectra into two counter-rotating stellar components (plus a gaseous component), in order to study both their kinematics and their populations. The derived kinematics largely confirm what was known previously about the stellar discs, but trace them to larger radii with smaller errors; the fitted gaseous component allows us to trace the hydrogen emission lines for the first time, which are found to follow the same rather strange kinematics previously seen in the [OIII] line. Analysis of the populations of the two separate stellar components shows that the secondary disc has a significantly younger mean age than the primary disc, consistent with later star formation from the associated gaseous material. In addition, the secondary disc is somewhat brighter, also consistent with such additional star formation. However, these measurements cannot be self-consistently modelled by a scenario in which extra stars have been added to initially identical counter-rotating stellar discs, which rules out the Evans & Collett's elegant 'separatrix-crossing' model for the formation of such massive counter-rotating discs from a single galaxy, leaving some form of unusual gas accretion history as the most likely formation mechanism. © 2012 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Abstract:

We present the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter Astronomy (CARMA) ATLAS3D molecular gas imaging survey, a systematic study of the distribution and kinematics of molecular gas in CO-rich early-type galaxies. Our full sample of 40 galaxies (30 newly mapped and 10 taken from the literature) is complete to a 12CO(1-0) integrated flux of 18.5 Jy km s-1,1 and it represents the largest, best studied sample of its type to date. A comparison of the CO distribution of each galaxy to the g - r colour image (representing dust) shows that the molecular gas and dust distributions are in good agreement and trace the same underlying interstellar medium. The galaxies exhibit a variety of CO morphologies, including discs (50 per cent), rings (15 per cent), bars+rings (10 per cent), spiral arms (5 per cent) and mildly (12.5 per cent) and strongly (7.5 per cent) disrupted morphologies. There appear to be weak trends between galaxy mass and CO morphology, whereby the most massive galaxies in the sample tend to have molecular gas in a disc morphology. We derive a lower limit to the total accreted molecular gas mass across the sample of 2.48 × 1010Mȯ, or approximately 8.3 × 108Mȯ per minor merger within the sample, consistent with minor merger stellar mass ratios. © 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Abstract:

We present a detailed study of the physical properties of the molecular gas in a sample of 18 molecular gas-rich early-type galaxies (ETGs) from the ATLAS3D sample. Our goal is to better understand the star formation processes occurring in those galaxies, starting here with the dense star-forming gas. We use existing integrated 12CO (1-0, 2-1), 13CO (1-0, 2-1), HCN (1-0) and HCO+ (1-0) observations and new 12 CO (3-2) single-dish data. From these, we derive for the first time the average kinetic temperature, H2 volume density and column density of the emitting gas in a significant sample of ETGs, using a non-local thermodynamical equilibrium theoretical model. Since the CO lines trace different physical conditions than of those the HCN and HCO+ lines, the two sets of lines are treated separately. For most of the molecular gas-rich ETGs studied here, the CO transitions can be reproduced with kinetic temperatures of 10-20 K, H2 volume densities of 103-4 cm-3 and CO column densities of 1018-20 cm-2. The physical conditions corresponding to the HCN and HCO+ gas component have large uncertainties and must be considered as indicative only. We also compare for the first time the predicted CO spectral line energy distributions and gas properties of our molecular gas-rich ETGs with those of a sample of nearby well-studied disc galaxies. The gas excitation conditions in 13 of our 18 ETGs appear analogous to those in the centre of theMilky Way, hence the star formation activity driving these conditions is likely of a similar strength and nature. Such results have never been obtained before for ETGs and open a new window to explore further star-formation processes in the Universe. The conclusions drawn should nevertheless be considered carefully, as they are based on a limited number of observations and on a simple model. In the near future, with higher CO transition observations, it should be possible to better identify the various gas components present in ETGs, as well as more precisely determine their associated physical conditions. To achieve these goals, we show here from our theoretical study, that mid-J CO lines [such as the 12CO (6-5) line] are particularly useful. © 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Abstract:

We study the volume-limited and nearly mass-selected (stellar mass Mstars ≳ 6 × 109 M⊙) ATLAS3D sample of 260 early-type galaxies (ETGs, ellipticals Es and lenticulars S0s). We construct detailed axisymmetric dynamical models (Jeans Anisotropic MGE), which allow for orbital anisotropy, include a dark matter halo and reproduce in detail both the galaxy images and the high-quality integral-field stellar kinematics out to about 1Re, the projected half-light radius. We derive accurate total mass-to-light ratios (M/L)e and dark matter fractions fDM, within a sphere of radius r = Re centred on the galaxies.We alsomeasure the stellar (M/L)stars and derive a median dark matter fraction fDM = 13 per cent in our sample. We infer masses MJAM = L × (M/L)e ≈ 2 ×M1/2, where M1/2 is the total mass within a sphere enclosing half of the galaxy light. We find that the thin two-dimensional subset spanned by galaxies in the (MJAM, σe,Rmaje ) coordinates system, which we call the Mass Plane (MP) has an observed rms scatter of 19 per cent, which implies an intrinsic one of 11 per cent. Here, Rmaje is the major axis of an isophote enclosing half of the observed galaxy light, while σe is measuredwithin that isophote. The MP satisfies the scalar virial relation MJAM ∝ σ2e Rmaje within our tight errors. This show that the larger scatter in the Fundamental Plane (FP) (L, σe, Re) is due to stellar population effects [including trends in the stellar initial mass function (IMF)]. It confirms that the FP deviation from the virial exponents is due to a genuine (M/L)e variation. However, the details of how both Re and σe are determined are critical in defining the precise deviation from the virial exponents. The main uncertainty in masses or M/L estimates using the scalar virial relation is in the measurement of Re. This problem is already relevant for nearby galaxies and may cause significant biases in virial mass and size determinations at high redshift. Dynamical models can eliminate these problems.We revisit the (M/L)e-σe relation, which describes most of the deviations between the MP and the FP. The best-fitting relation is (M/L)e ∝ σ0.72e (r band). It provides an upper limit to any systematic increase of the IMF mass normalization with σe. The correlation is more shallow and has smaller scatter for slow rotating systems or for galaxies in Virgo. For the latter, when using the best distance estimates, we observe a scatter in (M/L)e of 11 per cent, and infer an intrinsic one of 8 per cent. We perform an accurate empirical study of the link between se and the galaxies circular velocity Vcirc within 1Re (where stars dominate) and find the relation max (Vcirc) ≈ 1.76 × σe, which has an observed scatter of 7 per cent. The accurate parameters described in this paper are used in the companion Paper XX (Cappellari et al.) of this series to explore the variation of global galaxy properties, including the IMF, on the projections of the MP. © 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Abstract:

We explore the connection between the local escape velocity, Vesc, and the stellar population properties in the ATLAS3D survey, a complete, volume-limited sample of nearby early-type galaxies. We make use of ugriz photometry to construct Multi-Gaussian Expansion models of the surface brightnesses of our galaxies. We are able to fit the full range of surface brightness profiles found in our sample, and in addition we reproduce the results of state-ofthe- art photometry in the literature with residuals of 0.04 mag. We utilize these photometric models and SAURON integral-field spectroscopy, combined with Jeans dynamical modelling, to determine the local Vesc derived from the surface brightness. We find that the local Vesc is tightly correlated with the Mg b and Fe5015 line strengths and optical colours, and anticorrelated with the Hβ line strength. In the case of the Mg b and colour-Vesc relations we find that the relation within individual galaxies follows the global relation between different galaxies. We intentionally ignored any uncertain contribution due to dark matter since we are seeking an empirical description of stellar population gradients in early-type galaxies that is ideal for quantitative comparison with model predictions. We also make use of single stellar population (SSP) modelling to transform our line strength index measurements into the SSP-equivalent parameters age (t), metallicity ([Z/H]) and α-enhancement [α/Fe]. The residuals from the relation are correlated with age, [α/Fe], molecular gas mass and local environmental density. We identify a population of galaxies that occur only at low Vesc that exhibit negative gradients in the Mg b-and Colour-Vesc relations. These galaxies typically have young central stellar populations and contain significant amounts of molecular gas and dust. Combining these results with N-body simulations of binary mergers we use the Mgb-Vesc relation to constrain the possible number of dry mergers experienced by the local early-type galaxy population-a typical massive early-type galaxy can have experienced only ∼1.5 major mergers before becoming a significant outlier in the Mgb-Vesc relation. © 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.