Formation Mechanisms for Spheroidal Stellar Systems

Details Formation Mechanisms for Spheroidal Stellar Systems Formation Mechanisms for Spheroidal Stellar Systems

Feb 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010vsgh.conf..153s&link_type=abstract

Variable Stars, the Galactic halo and Galaxy Formation, Proceedings of an international conference held in Zvenigorod, Russia, 1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Spheroidal stellar systems on various scales include elliptical galaxies, dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and globular stellar clusters. Elliptical galaxies are thought to be formed by major mergers of disk galaxies: it is the easiest way to create dynamically hot stellar systems without rotation, whose shape is supported only by anisotropic chaotic motions (by stellar velocity dispersion). However some recent observational findings have put into doubt this commonly accepted scenario. Some features of elliptical galaxies structure can only be explained if minor merging has mostly shaped these spheroidal stellar systems. The dwarf spheroidal galaxies represent quite certainly former disk galaxies shaped and transformed by tidal interactions with their large host galaxies. Globular clusters differ from the (dwarf) spheroidal galaxies by an absence of their own dark matter component. Thus, they cannot be either downscaled version of galaxies nor the direct precursors of elliptical galaxies during the hierarchical gravitational clustering of baryons. However they are the oldest stellar systems in the Universe - it is an observational fact. The formation mechanisms of the oldest globular clusters represent a puzzle yet.

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