The distribution of ionized gas in early-type galaxies

Details The distribution of ionized gas in early-type galaxies The distribution of ionized gas in early-type galaxies

Dec 1993

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993a%26a...280..409b&link_type=abstract

Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 280, no. 2, p. 409-425

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

70

Elliptical Galaxies, Galactic Structure, H Alpha Line, Ionized Gases, Mass Distribution, Nitrogen, Visible Spectrum, Data Reduction, Luminosity, Morphology, Spectrophotometers, Spectrum Analysis

Scientific paper

We present and discuss H-alpha+(N II) imaging observations of fifteen nearby elliptical and SO galaxies with extended optical emission lines. The morphology of the emitting regions suggests that the ionized gas usually lies in a disk which is often geometrically decoupled from the stellar body, as expected in a triaxial galaxy. The presence of a gaseous disk makes these galaxies suitable for testing their gravitational field in a straightforward way. The presence of dust in many of the disks, together with the observed morphological properties, suggests that the ionized gas in most of these galaxies is more closely associated with the cold Interstellar Medium (ISM) than with the hot X-ray component. The mass of ionized gas in the galaxies studied here is typically 10-100 times that in a 'normal' early-type galaxy of similar optical luminosity. These appear to be galaxies where an unusually high fraction of the cold gas has been ionized, rather than unusually gas-rich systems in an overall sense. The extra ionizing source may be related to an active nucleus, since the continuum radio emission from these galaxies is typically 10-15 times more powerful than in 'normal' ellipticals of the smae optical luminosity.

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