Optical-Near Infrared Color Gradients of Elliptical Galaxies and Their Environmental Dependence

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

3 pages, 2 figures. Proceedings of the 6th East Asian Meeting of Astronomy, held at Seoul National University, Korea, from Oct

Scientific paper

We have studied the environmental effect on optical-NIR color gradients of 273 nearby elliptical galaxies. Color gradient is a good tool to study the evolutionary history of elliptical galaxies, since the steepness of the color gradient reflects merging history of early types. When an elliptical galaxy goes through many merging events, the color gradient can be get less steep or reversed due to mixing of stars. One simple way to measure color gradient is to compare half-light radii in different bands. We have compared the optical and near infrared half-light radii of 273 early-type galaxies from Pahre(1999). Not surprisingly, we find that r$_{e}$(V)s (half-light radii measured in V-band) are in general larger than r$_{e}$(K)s (half-light radii measured in K-band). However, when divided into different environments, we find that elliptical galaxies in the denser environment have gentler color gradients than those in the less dense environment. Our finding suggests that elliptical galaxies in the dense environment have undergone many merging events and the mixing of stars through the merging have created the gentle color gradients.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Optical-Near Infrared Color Gradients of Elliptical Galaxies and Their Environmental Dependence does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Optical-Near Infrared Color Gradients of Elliptical Galaxies and Their Environmental Dependence, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Optical-Near Infrared Color Gradients of Elliptical Galaxies and Their Environmental Dependence will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-293550

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.