Related papers: What are we missing in elliptical galaxies ?
We present optical and near infrared spectroscopy obtained at Keck, VLT, and Gemini for a sample of 36 secure strong gravitational lens systems and 17 candidates identified as part of the SL2S survey. The deflectors are massive early-type…
We present an analysis of the evolution of the central mass-density profile of massive elliptical galaxies from the SLACS and BELLS strong gravitational lens samples over the redshift interval z ~ 0.1-0.6, based on the combination of…
The combination of strong gravitational lensing and stellar kinematics provides a powerful and robust method to investigate the mass and dynamical structure of early-type galaxies. We demonstrate this approach by analysing two massive…
We show that the observed upper bound on the line-of-sight velocity dispersion of the stars in an early-type galaxy, sigma<400km/s, may have a simple dynamical origin within the LCDM cosmological model, under two main hypotheses. The first…
The observed stellar kinematics of dispersion-supported galaxies are often used to measure dynamical masses. Recently, several analytical relationships between the stellar line-of-sight velocity dispersion, the projected (2D) or deprojected…
We study M/L evolution of early-type galaxies using dynamical modeling of resolved internal kinematics. This makes fewer assumptions than Fundamental Plane (FP) studies and provides a powerful new approach for studying galaxy evolution. We…
We present a photometric analysis of a large sample of early-type galaxies in 16 nearby groups, imaged with the Wide-Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope. Using a two-dimensional surface brightness decomposition routine, we fit Sersic…
The observed velocity dispersion of the classical dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies of the Milky Way (MW) requires the Newtonian stellar mass-to-light ($M_*/L$) ratios in the range of about 10 to more than 100 solar units that are well…
We present an analysis of the Fundamental Plane for a sample of 27 field early-type galaxies in the redshift range 0.6<z<1.15. The galaxies in this sample have high S/N spectra obtained at the VLT and high resolution imaging from the ACS.…
Gauss-Hermite and Gauss-Laguerre ("shapelet") decompositions of images have become important tools in galaxy modeling, particularly for the purpose of extracting ellipticity and morphological information from astronomical data. However, the…
Recent low-redshift observations have attempted to determine the star formation histories of elliptical galaxies by tracking correlations between the stellar population parameters (age and metallicity) and the structural parameters that…
We have examined the luminosity-size relationship as a function of environment for 12150 SDSS galaxies with precise visual classifications from the catalog of Nair & Abraham (2010a). Our analysis is subdivided into investigations of…
Using a large galaxy group catalogue constructed from the SDSS, we investigate the correlation between various galaxy properties and halo mass. We split the population of galaxies in early types, late types, and intermediate types, based on…
We analyze a sample of 23 supermassive elliptical galaxies (central velocity dispersion larger than 330 km s-1), drawn from the SDSS. For each object, we estimate the dynamical mass from the light profile and central velocity dispersion,…
The redshift and size distributions of galaxy scale strong lenses depend on the evolution of early-type galaxies (ETGs). We use this dependence to constrain the velocity dispersion function (VDF) evolution from the Strong Lensing Legacy…
We analyze the dependence of the stellar disc flatness on the galaxy morphological type using 2D decomposition of galaxies from the reliable subsample of the Edge-on Galaxies in SDSS (EGIS) catalogue. Combining these data with the retrieved…
We calculate the expected lensing statistics of the galaxy population in large, low-redshift surveys. Galaxies are modeled using realistic, multiple components: a dark matter halo, a bulge component and disc. We use semi-analytic models of…
(ABRIDGED) We examine the fundamental scaling relations of elliptical galaxies formed through mergers. Using hundreds of simulations to judge the impact of progenitor galaxy properties on merger remnants, we find that gas dissipation…
Multiple image gravitational lens systems, and especially quads are invaluable in determining the amount and distribution of mass in galaxies. This is usually done by mass modeling using parametric or free-form methods. An alternative way…
The evolution of the structural and kinematic properties of early-type galaxies (ETGs), their scaling relations, as well as their stellar metallicity and age contain precious information on the assembly history of these systems. We present…