Related papers: Remnants of recent mergers in nearby early-type ga…
The mass assembly of galaxies leaves various imprints on their surroundings, such as shells, streams and tidal tails. The frequency and properties of these fine structures depend on the mechanism driving the mass assembly: e.g. a monolithic…
We have used the 28'x 28' HST image mosaic from the GEMS (Galaxy Evolution from Morphology and SEDs) survey in conjunction with the COMBO-17 photometric redshift survey to constrain the incidence of major mergers between spheroid-dominated…
Supermassive black hole (SMBH) coalescence in galaxy mergers is believed to be one of the primary sources of very low frequency gravitational waves (GWs). Significant contribution of the GWs comes from mergers of massive galaxies with…
We use numerical simulations to examine the structure of merger remnants resulting from collisions of gas-rich spiral galaxies. When the gas fraction of the progenitors is small, the remnants structurally and kinematically resemble…
Context. Sheen and collaborators recently found that a surprisingly large portion (38%) of massive early-type galaxies in heavy clusters show strong merger-related disturbed features. This contradicts the general understanding that massive…
In order to study early type galaxies in their simplest environments, we have constructed a well-defined sample of 30 isolated galaxies. The sample contains all RC3 early-type galaxies with no other cataloged galaxy with known redshift…
Several deep observations such as those carried out at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) have revealed prominent Low Surface Brightness (LSB) fine structures that change the apparent morphology of galaxies. Previous photometry…
Merging galaxies play a key role in galaxy evolution, and progress in our understanding of galaxy evolution is slowed by the difficulty of making accurate galaxy merger identifications. We use GADGET-3 hydrodynamical simulations of merging…
It is difficult to accurately identify galaxy mergers and it is an even larger challenge to classify them by their mass ratio or merger stage. In previous work we used a suite of simulated mergers to create a classification technique that…
We investigate the incidence of major mergers creating >10e11 Msun galaxies in present-day groups and clusters more massive than 2.5e13 Msun. We identify 38 pairs of massive galaxies with mutual tidal interaction signatures selected from…
We present a detailed surface density analysis of a large sample of simulated collisionless mergers of disc galaxies with bulges (mass ratios 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, and 6:1) and without bulges (mass ratios 1:1 and 3:1). They were classified,…
Blue early-type galaxies with galaxy-scale ongoing star formation are interesting targets in order to understand the stellar mass buildup in elliptical and S0 galaxies in the local Universe. We study the star-forming population of blue…
Mergers between red galaxies are observed to be common in the nearby Universe, and are thought to be the dominant mechanism by which massive galaxies grow their mass at late times. These ``dry'' mergers can be readily identified in very…
Available data on the magnesium - velocity dispersion (Mg-sigma) relation for \~2000 early-type galaxies is collected and compared. As noted previously, the Mg residuals from a fitted line are roughly Gaussian near the mean but have an…
Major mergers are popularly considered too destructive to produce the relaxed regular structures and the morphological inner components (ICs) usually observed in lenticular (S0) galaxies. We aim to test if major mergers can produce remnants…
In the standard cosmological model of galaxy evolution, mergers and interactions play a fundamental role in shaping galaxies. Galaxies that are currently isolated are thus interesting, allowing us to distinguish between internal and…
We have made a careful selection of a large complete volume-limited sample (1209) of projected close pairs (7<r_p<50 kpc) of luminous early-type galaxies (M_r<-21.5) in the local universe (z<0.12) from the SDSS data. 249 (21%) of them show…
A growing body of observational evidence suggests that the luminosity, photometric shape and amount of rotational or anisotropical support in elliptical galaxies may provide vital clues to how they formed. Elliptical galaxies appear to fall…
Merger remnants of small groups of galaxies are contrasted with relics of mergers of pairs of galaxies to determine which process produces objects that best compare to real ellipticals. In both cases, the progenitors consist of…
We demonstrate that the large scatter in the ultra-violet (UV) colours of intermediate-mass early-type galaxies in the local Universe and the inferred low-level recent star formation in these objects can be reproduced by minor mergers in…