Dry mergers and the size evolution of early-type galaxies

Details Dry mergers and the size evolution of early-type galaxies Dry mergers and the size evolution of early-type galaxies

2011-09-08

arxiv.org/abs/1109.1669v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Galaxy Astrophysics

4 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. To appear in "Advances in Computational Astrophysics: methods, tools and outcomes", ASP Conference

Scientific paper

Dry (i.e. dissipationless) merging has been proposed as the main driver of the observed size evolution of early-type galaxies (ETGs). The actual role of this mechanism is questioned by the tightness of the local stellar mass-size relation of ETGs. Combining this observed scaling law with simple merging models, which should bracket cosmologically motivated merging histories, we draw the following conclusions: 1) local massive ETGs can have assembled at most ~45% of their stellar mass via dry mergers; 2) extreme fine tuning is required for this to be the case.

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