Related papers: A Population of Compact Elliptical Galaxies Detect…
The last decade of research on elliptical galaxies has produced a wealth of new information concerning both their detailed structure and their global scaling relations. We review the old and new results about isophote shapes and…
Compact ellipticals (cEs) are outliers from the scaling relations of early-type galaxies, particularly the mass-metallicity relation which is an important outcome of feedback. The formation of such low-mass, but metal-rich and compact,…
This thesis presents observational studies of evolution of dwarf elliptical galaxies. dE's are numerically dominant population in clusters of galaxies, but their origin and evolution is a matter of debate. Several scenarios of gas removal…
Dwarf ellipticals have the lowest stellar densities of any galaxies, but paradoxically are most common in the densest regions of the universe, and are especially frequent in rich clusters of galaxies. Simple estimates suggest that low…
Recent studies have shown that massive galaxies in the distant universe are surprisingly compact, with typical sizes about a factor of three smaller than equally massive galaxies in the nearby universe. It has been suggested that these…
We review the observational evidence showing that luminous cluster elliptical galaxies are old stellar systems, undergoing mostly passive stellar evolution up to redshift $z\approx 1$, with approximate coeval epoch of formation. This…
We present kinematics and stellar population properties of 17 dwarf early-type galaxies in the luminosity range -14> M_B> -19. Our sample fills the gap between the intensively studied giant elliptical and Local Group dwarf spheroidal…
At redshift z = 2, when the Universe was just three billion years old, half of the most massive galaxies were extremely compact and had already exhausted their fuel for star formation(1-4). It is believed that they were formed in intense…
The formation pathways of compact stellar systems (CSSs) are still under debate. We utilize the \NH\ simulation to investigate the origins of such objects in the field environment. We identified 55 CSS candidates in the simulation whose…
We present two newly-discovered, compact elliptical (cE) galaxies, which exhibit clear evidence of tidal steams, found in a search of SDSS DR7. The structural parameters of the cEs are derived using GALFIT and give effective radii < 400 pc.…
Recent studies have shown that massive quiescent galaxies at high redshift are much more compact than present-day galaxies of the same mass. Here we compare the radial stellar density profiles and the number density of a sample of massive…
The discovery of a population of massive, compact and quiescent early-type galaxies has changed the view on plausible formation scenarios for the present day population of elliptical galaxies. Traditionally assumed formation histories…
In recent years, a growing zoo of compact stellar systems (CSSs) have been found whose physical properties (mass, size, velocity dispersion) place them between classical globular clusters (GCs) and true galaxies, leading to debates about…
A fundamental prediction of the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) cosmology is the centrally divergent cuspy density profile of dark matter haloes. Density cusps render CDM haloes resilient to tides, and protect dwarf galaxies embedded in them…
In models of galaxy formation in a hierarchical Universe, elliptical galaxies form through the merging of smaller disk systems. These models yield a number of testable predictions if reliable techniques for determining the relative ages and…
We present a structural analysis of 138 compact elliptical galaxies (cEs) in the redshift range of $z < 0.05$ using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR12 data. We perform single- and double-component S\'ersic model fitting to their SDSS…
A brief overview of the properties of massive star clusters in early-type galaxies is given. All ellipticals (with only one known exception) host massive star clusters in the form of globular clusters, suggesting that their formation is…
We take advantage of the largest high-resolution simulation of cosmic structure growth ever carried out -- the Millennium Simulation of the concordance LambdaCDM cosmogony -- to study how the star formation histories, ages and metallicities…
Ultra Compact Dwarf Galaxies (UCDs) and dwarf galaxy nuclei have many common properties, such as internal velocity dispersions and colour-magnitude trends, suggesting tidally stripped dwarf galaxies as a possible UCD origin. However, UCDs…
It has been widely remarked that compact, massive, elliptical-like galaxies are abundant at high redshifts but exceedingly rare in the Universe today, implying significant evolution such that their sizes at z ~ 2+/-0.6 have increased by…