Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2000
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000phdt.........7b&link_type=abstract
Thesis (PhD). OHIO UNIVERSITY, Source DAI-B 61/06, p. 3091, Dec 2000, 152 pages.
Other
3
Scientific paper
Counter rotating cores are observed in approximately 10% of elliptical galaxies. A suggested method of formation, is one in which dynamical friction causes a compact companion to spiral into the center of a much larger elliptical galaxy on a retrograde orbit relative to the larger galaxy's rotation. If the core of the smaller galaxy is not tidally disrupted, it may carry some of its orbital angular momentum to the center. I present results from N-body simulations of counter rotating core formation by this method, which is also known as dissipationless satellite accretion. Two dimensional line of sight velocities fields, including third and fourth order Gauss-Hermite terms, are created using the penalized likelihood method of Merritt, and the photometric aspects of the simulations are analyzed with IRAF to provide a comparison with observations. The results show that dissipationless accretion of a satellite is unlikely to form counter rotating cores in more than one percent of all ellipticals. This low estimate is the result of all but the densest satellites disrupting before reaching the center of the larger galaxy and a significant increase in the orbital inclination of most satellites before they reach the center. A semi-analytical description of the latter effect is presented herein. All satellites which reach the center produce a dense central core of satellite particles surrounded by a hot disk of particles from the larger galaxy. The observational effects of this are an increase in the ellipticity just outside the core and a larger decrease in the fourth Gauss-Hermite coefficient along the major photometric axis than along the minor axis. These two traits should be able to distinguish counter rotating cores formed by this method from those formed by other methods. In the cases in which a counter rotating core is produced most of the rotation is due to the net rotation of particles originally in the larger galaxy.
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