English

The size--mass and other structural parameter ($n, \mu_z, R_z$) relations for local bulges/spheroids from multicomponent decompositions

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2022-12-23 v2

Abstract

We analyse the bulge/spheroid size-(stellar mass), Re,SphM,SphR_{\rm e,Sph}-M_{\rm *,Sph}, relation and spheroid structural parameters for 202 local (predominantly 110 Mpc\lesssim 110~\rm Mpc) galaxies spanning M3×1091012 M M_*\sim 3\times10^{9}-10^{12}~\rm M_{\odot} and 0.1Re,Sph32 kpc 0.1 \lesssim R_{\rm e, Sph}\lesssim32~\rm kpc from multicomponent decomposition. The correlations between the spheroid S\'ersic index (nSphn_{\rm Sph}), central surface brightness (μ0,Sph\mu_{\rm 0, Sph}), effective half-light radius (Re,SphR_{\rm e, Sph}), absolute magnitude (MSph\mathfrak{M}_{\rm Sph}) and stellar mass (M,SphM_{\rm *,Sph}) are explored. We also investigate the consequences of using different scale radii, Rz,SphR_{z,\rm Sph}, encapsulating a different fraction (zz, from 0 to 1) of the total luminosity. The correlation strengths for projected mass densities, Σz\Sigma_z and Σz\langle \Sigma \rangle_z, vary significantly with the choice of zz. Spheroid size (Rz,SphR_{\rm z, Sph}) and mass (M,SphM_{\rm *,Sph}) are strongly correlated for all light fractions zz. We find: log(Re,Sph/kpc)=0.88log(M,Sph/M)9.15\log(R_{\rm e,Sph}/\rm kpc) = 0.88\log(M_{\rm *,Sph}/\rm M_{\odot})-9.15 with a small scatter of Δrms=0.24 dex\Delta_{rms} = 0.24~\rm dex. This result is discussed relative to the \textit{curved} size-mass relation for early-type galaxies due to their discs yielding larger galaxy radii at lower masses. Moreover, the slope of our spheroid size-mass relation is a factor of 3\sim3, steeper than reported bulge size-mass relations, and with bulge sizes at M,sph3×109 MM_{\rm *,sph}\sim 3\times10^9~M_\odot which are 2 to 3 times smaller. Finally, we show that the local spheroids align well with quiescent galaxies at z1.25z\sim1.25--2.252.25. In essence, local spheroids and high-zz quiescent galaxies appear structurally similar, likely dictated by the virial theorem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2209.01550,
  title  = {The size--mass and other structural parameter ($n, \mu_z, R_z$) relations for local bulges/spheroids from multicomponent decompositions},
  author = {Dexter S. -H. Hon and Alister W. Graham and Nandini Sahu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.01550},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

19 pages, 15 figures, Accepted to MNRAS