Related papers: Dissipation and Extra Light in Galactic Nuclei: II…
We investigate how 'extra' central light in the surface brightness profiles of cusp ellipticals relates to the profiles of ellipticals with cores. Cusp elliptical envelopes are formed by violent relaxation in mergers acting on stars in…
We study the origin and properties of 'extra' or 'excess' central light in the surface brightness profiles of gas-rich merger remnants. Combining a large set of hydrodynamical simulations with data on observed mergers (spanning a broad…
We develop observational tests of the idea that dissipation in gas-rich mergers produces the fundamental plane (FP) and related correlations obeyed by ellipticals. The FP 'tilt' implies lower-mass ellipticals have a higher ratio of stellar…
It is commonly accepted that a merger of two spiral galaxies results in a remnant with an elliptical-like surface-brightness profile. Surprisingly, our recent study (Chitre & Jog 2002) of the 2MASS data for twenty-seven advanced mergers of…
We examine two extreme models for the build-up of the stellar component of luminous elliptical galaxies. In one case, we assume the build-up of stars is dissipational, with centrally accreted gas radiating away its orbital and thermal…
Nuclear stellar cusps are defined as central excess light component in the stellar light profiles of galaxies and are suggested to be stellar relics of intense compact starbursts in the central ~100-500 pc region of gas-rich major mergers.…
New measurements of the stellar-mass deficits at the centers of luminous elliptical galaxies are presented. These were derived considering the following observational facts. Firstly, ``core'' galaxies, which are thought to have had their…
New surface photometry of all known elliptical galaxies in the Virgo cluster is added to published data to derive composite profiles over large dynamic ranges. Sersic functions fit them remarkably well. Effective brightnesses and radii are…
We present collisionless simulations of dry mergers in groups of three to twenty-five galaxies to test the hypothesis that elliptical galaxies form at the centers of such groups. Mock observations of the central remnants confirm their…
There are two families of luminous elliptical galaxies: cusp galaxies, with steep central surface-brightness profiles, and core galaxies, whose surface-brightness profiles have flat central cores. Thermal evaporation of accreted cold gas by…
The stellar surface mass density profiles at the centers of typical ~L* and lower-mass spheroids exhibit power law 'cusps' with $\Sigma \propto R^(-n)$, where 0.5<n<1 for radii ~1-100 pc. Observations and theory support models in which…
{Abridged} We show that the surface brightness (SB) profiles of elliptical galaxies can be parametrized using a linear superposition of 2-3 components, described by functions developed in Dhar & Williams as the 2D projections of a 3D…
High-resolution numerical simulations of galaxy mergers are analysed. The global structure and isophotal shapes of the merger remnants are in good agreement with the observations. Whereas equal-mass mergers lead to anisotropic, boxy…
We present near-IR K-band imaging and spectroscopy of a sample of galaxy mergers, which we use to derive light profile indices, absolute magnitudes and central velocity dispersions. It is found that the light distributions of mergers more…
We derive the light profiles for a sample of 25 dwarf elliptical galaxies observed by us with HST/WFPC2 in F555W and F814W. These profiles are fitted with Nuker, R^1/4, exponential, and Sersic laws, and are also used to derive the nuclear…
A method is developed to evaluate the magnifications of the images of galaxies with lensing potentials stratified on similar concentric ellipses. A simple contour integral is provided which enables the sums of the magnifications of even…
We report high quality near-infrared spectroscopy of 12 ultra-luminous infrared galaxy mergers (ULIRGs). Our new VLT and Keck data provide ~0.5" resolution, stellar and gas kinematics of these galaxies most of which are compact systems in…
There are strong correlations between the three structural properties of elliptical galaxies -- stellar mass, velocity dispersion and size -- in the form of a tight "fundamental plane" and a "scaling relation" between each pair. Major…
Mergers in the local universe present a unique opportunity for studying the transformations of galaxies in detail. Presented here are recent results, based on multi-wavelength, high-resolution imaging and medium resolution spectroscopy,…
This paper is the second in a series exploring the properties of 51 {\it optically} selected, single-nuclei merger remnants. Spectroscopic data have been obtained for a sub-sample of 38 mergers and combined with previously obtained infrared…