Related papers: Dissipation and Extra Light in Galactic Nuclei: II…
We have developed an effective simulation method and applied it to the problem of the accretion of very dense secondary companions by tenuous primaries. We have studied the accretion of objects of varying luminosity ratios, with sizes and…
We fit the surface-brightness profiles of 21 elliptical galaxies using both the Sersic function and a new empirical model which combines an inner power law with an outer Sersic function. The profiles are combinations of deconvolved HST…
We have used the EFAR sample of galaxies to study the light distributions of early-type galaxies. We decompose the 2D light distribution of the galaxies in a flattened spheroidal component with a Sersic radial light profile and an inclined…
Using isophotal radius correlations for a sample of 2MASS ellipticals, we have constructed a series of template surface brightness profiles to describe the profile shapes of ellipticals as a function of luminosity. The templates are a…
We use numerical models which include star formation to analyze the mass profiles of remnants formed by mergers of disk galaxies. During a merger, dissipation in gas and ensuing star formation leave behind a dense stellar core in the…
We simulate the dynamical, chemical, and spectro-photometric evolution of dwarf and normal elliptical galaxies embedded in a dark matter halo, using a three-dimensional N-body/SPH simulation code. For the forming dwarf elliptical galaxies,…
This article reviews the popular reasons for the belief that dwarf elliptical galaxies and (ordinary) elliptical galaxies are distinct and separate species. They include: light-profile shape (or similarly image concentration); the…
Dynamical systems in equilibrium have a stationary entropy; we suggest that elliptical galaxies, as stellar systems in a stage of quasi-equilibrium, may have a unique specific entropy. This uniqueness, a priori unknown, should be reflected…
We carry out numerical simulations of dissipationless major mergers of elliptical galaxies using initial galaxy models that consist of a dark matter halo and a stellar bulge with properties consistent with the observed fundamental plane. By…
It has long been known that the radial density profiles of globular cluster systems (GCSs) in elliptical galaxies vary with the total luminosities of their host galaxies. In order to elucidate the origin of this structural non-homology in…
We numerically investigate chemodynamical evolution of major disk-disk galaxy mergers in order to explore the origin of mass-dependent chemical, photometric, and spectroscopic properties observed in elliptical galaxies. We particularly…
We present a systematic analysis of the constraints $\sigma_\gamma$ on the mass profile slope $\gamma$ obtainable when fitting a singular power-law ellipsoid model to a typical strong lensing observation of an extended source. These results…
Dynamical modeling and strong lensing data indicate that the total density profiles of early-type galaxies are close to isothermal, i.e., rho_tot ~ r^gamma with gamma approx -2. To understand the origin of this universal slope we study a…
There is observational evidence for inside-out growth of elliptical galaxies since $z \gtrsim 2-3$, which is not driven by in-situ star formation. Many systems at high redshift have small sizes $\sim 1kpc$ and surface brightness profiles…
Emission lines with a double-peak (DP) shape, detected in the centre of galaxies, have been extensively used in the past to identify peculiar kinematics such as dual active galactic nuclei, outflows or mergers. From a large DP galaxy…
A sample of 27 disturbed galaxies that show signs of interaction but have a single nucleus were selected from the Arp and the Arp-Madore catalogues. For these, the K_s band images from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) are analysed to…
Massive early-type galaxies have undergone dramatic structural evolution over the last 10 Gyr. A companion paper shows that nearby elliptical galaxies with M*>1.3x10^{11} M_sun generically contain three photometric subcomponents: a compact…
The discovery of proto-globular cluster candidates in many current-day mergers allows us to better understand the possible effects of a merger event on the globular cluster system of a galaxy, and to foresee the properties of the…
Observations consistently show that elliptical galaxies follow a tight "fundamental plane" scaling relation between size, mean surface brightness and velocity dispersion, with the form $R \propto \sigma^{a}\mu^{b}$. This relation not only…
We use numerical simulations to study the kinematic structure of remnants formed from mergers of equal-mass disk galaxies. In particular, we show that remnants of dissipational mergers, which include the radiative cooling of gas, star…