Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers: Explaining angular momentum and concentration change from spirals to S0s
Abstract
The CALIFA team has recently found that the stellar angular momentum and concentration of late-type spiral galaxies are incompatible with those of lenticular galaxies (S0s), concluding that fading alone cannot satisfactorily explain the evolution from spirals into S0s. Here we explore whether major mergers can provide an alternative way to transform spirals into S0s by analysing the spiral-spiral major mergers from the GalMer database that lead to realistic, relaxed S0-like galaxies. We find that the change in stellar angular momentum and concentration can explain the differences in the -- plane found by the CALIFA team. Major mergers thus offer a feasible explanation for the transformation of spirals into S0s.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1506.00640,
title = {Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers: Explaining angular momentum and concentration change from spirals to S0s},
author = {Miguel Querejeta and M. Carmen Eliche-Moral and Trinidad Tapia and Alejandro Borlaff and Glenn van de Ven and Mariya Lyubenova and Marie Martig and Jesús Falcón-Barroso and Jairo Méndez-Abreu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.00640},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
7 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in A&A