The Demographics of Bulges in the Local Universe

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

We report on our recent study to provide an inventory of galaxy bulge types (elliptical galaxy, classical bulge, pseudobulge, and bulgeless galaxy) in a volume-limited sample within the local 11 Mpc volume using Spitzer 3.6 micron and HST data. We find that whether counting by number, star formation rate, or stellar mass, the dominant galaxy type in the local universe has pure disk characteristics (either hosting a pseudobulge or being bulgeless). Galaxies that contain either a pseudobulge or no bulge combine to account for over 80% of the number of galaxies above a stellar mass of 109 Msun. Classical bulges and elliptical galaxies account for 1/4, and disks for 3/4 of the stellar mass in the local 11 Mpc. About 2/3 of all star formation in the local volume takes place in galaxies with pseudobulges. It has been suggested that pseudobulges are formed via internal disk instabilities. If this is true, and pseudobulges are not a product of mergers, then the frequency of pseudobulges in the local universe poses a challenge for galaxy evolution models which assume that bulge-to-total ratio is a function only of the merging process.

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