Related papers: Formation and Cosmic Evolution of Elliptical Galax…
How elliptical galaxy dynamics relate to galaxy structure, stellar populations, spiral galaxies and environment are reviewed. The evidence assembled shows that most, if not all, galaxies originally classified as gE contain disks within…
Context. The assembly history of the stellar component of a massive elliptical galaxy is closely related to that of its dark matter halo. Measuring how the properties of galaxies correlate with their halo mass can help understand their…
We reconstruct the history of the cosmic star formation in the universe by means of detailed chemical evolution models for galaxies of different morphological types. We consider a picture of coeval, non-interacting evolving galaxies where…
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…
We have studied a large number of elliptical galaxies and found a correlation between their dark matter content and the ellipticity of their visible shape. The galaxies were strictly selected so that only typical medium-size elliptical…
We study the chemodynamical evolution of elliptical galaxies and their X-ray and optical properties using high-resolution cosmological simulations. Our Tree N-body/SPH code includes a self-consistent treatment of radiative cooling, star…
Recent progress is summarized on the determination of the density distributions of stars and dark matter, stellar kinematics, and stellar population properties, in the extended, low surface brightness halo regions of elliptical galaxies.…
Present-day elliptical, spiral and irregular galaxies are large systems made of stars, gas and dark matter. Their properties result from a variety of physical processes that have occurred during the nearly fourteen billion years since the…
In order to understand the formation process of elliptical galaxies which are not rotationally supported, we have carried out numerical simulations of the galaxy formation from the density perturbation with a rotation corresponding to a…
The halo masses of nearby individual elliptical galaxies can be estimated by using the kinematics of their stars, planetary nebulae, and globular clusters -- ideally in combination. With currently improving coverage of galaxies of ordinary…
In this study we present a simple model of elliptical galaxies aimed at interpreting the gradients in colours and narrow band indices observed across these systems. Salient features of the model are the gradients in mass density and star…
Globular clusters are valuable fossil records of the formation and evolution of their host galaxies. The color distribution of elliptical galaxy globular cluster systems indicates an episodic formation history, consistent with a merger…
We test the hypothesis that elliptical galaxies are formed by violent mergers in a universe with hierarchical structure formation. Within the framework of a semi-analytic scheme for galaxy formation, we predict the distribution of…
The statistical properties of the ellipticities of galaxy images depend on how galaxies form and evolve, and therefore constrain models of galaxy morphology, which are key to the removal of the intrinsic alignment contamination of…
There are many proposed mechanisms driving the morphological transformation of disk galaxies to elliptical galaxies. In this paper, we determine if the observed transformation in low mass groups can be explained by the merger histories of…
This paper is the first in a series in which we present the results of an ESO Large Program on the kinematics and internal dynamics of dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs). We investigate the relations between the parameters that quantify the…
This review focuses on how galaxies and their globular cluster systems form. I first discuss the now fairly convincing evidence that some globular clusters form in galaxy starbursts/mergers. One way these observations are valuable is they…
The formation of elliptical galaxies as a result of the merging of spiral galaxies is discussed. We analyse a large set of numerical N-Body merger simulations which show that major mergers can in principle explain the observed isophotal…
Elliptical galaxies probably host the most metal rich stellar populations in the Universe. The processes leading to both the formation and the evolution of such stars are discussed by means of a new multi-zone photo-chemical evolution…
I describe recent challenges in hierarchical galaxy formation theory, including the formation of disk galaxies and of ellipticals. Problems with cold dark matter are summarized, and possible solutions are presented. I conclude with a…