Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2006-11-10
Astrophys.J.658:65-77,2007
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
31 pages, 7 figures, accepted by ApJ (main journal)
Scientific paper
10.1086/510773
With the aid of a simple yet robust approach we investigate the influence of dissipationless and dissipative merging on galaxy structure, and the consequent effects on the scaling laws followed by elliptical galaxies. Our results suggest that ellipticals cannot be originated by parabolic merging of low mass spheroids only, even in presence of substantial gas dissipation. However, we also found that scaling laws such as the Faber-Jackson, Kormendy, Fundamental Plane, and the Mbh -sigma relations, when considered over the whole mass range spanned by ellipticals in the local universe, are robust against merging. We conclude that galaxy scaling laws, possibly established at high redshift by the fast collapse in pre-existing dark matter halos of gas rich and clumpy stellar distributions, are compatible with a (small) number of galaxy mergers at lower redshift.
Ciotti Luca
Lanzoni Barbara
Volonteri Marta
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