Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2006-05-29
Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.371:2-18,2006
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 23 pages, 20 figures
Scientific paper
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10586.x
We have modelled the light distribution in 10095 galaxies from the Millennium Galaxy Catalogue (MGC), providing publically available structural catalogues for a large, representative sample of galaxies in the local Universe. Three different models were used: (1) a single Sersic function for the whole galaxy, (2) a bulge-disc decomposition model using a de Vaucouleurs (R^{1/4}) bulge plus exponential disc, (3) a bulge-disc decomposition model using a Sersic (R^{1/n}) bulge plus exponential disc. Repeat observations for 700 galaxies demonstrate that stable measurements can be obtained for object components with a half-light radius comparable to, or larger than, the seeing half-width at half maximum. We show that with careful quality control, robust measurements can be obtained for large samples such as the MGC. We use the catalogues to show that the galaxy colour bimodality is due to the two-component nature of galaxies (i.e. bulges and discs) and not to two distinct galaxy populations. We conclude that understanding galaxy evolution demands the routine bulge-disc decomposition of the giant galaxy population at all redshifts.
Allen Paul D.
Cameron Ewan
de Propris Roberto
Driver Simon. P.
Graham Alister W.
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