• Title/Summary/Keyword: galaxies: dwarf elliptical galaxies

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OLOR-MAGNITUDE RELATIONS OF EARLY-TYPE DWARF GALAXIES IN THE VIRGO CLUSTER: AN ULTRAVIOLET PERSPECTIVE

  • Kim, Suk;Rey, Soo-Chang;Lisker, Thorsten;Sohn, Sangmo Tony
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.35 no.2
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    • pp.38.2-38.2
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    • 2010
  • We present ultraviolet (UV) color-magnitude relations (CMRs) of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster, based on Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) UV and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) optical imaging data. We find that dwarf lenticular galaxies (dS0s), including peculiar dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs) with disk substructures and blue centers, show a surprisingly distinct and tight locus separated from that of ordinary dEs, which is not clearly seen in previous CMRs. The dS0s in UV CMRs follow a steeper sequence than dEs and show bluer UV-optical color at a given magnitude. We also find that the UV CMRs of dEs in the outer cluster region are slightly steeper than that of their counterparts in the inner region, due to the existence of faint, blue dEs in the outer region. We explore the observed CMRs with population models of a luminosity-dependent delayed exponential star formation history. We confirm that the feature of delayed star formation of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster is strongly correlated with their morphology and environment. The observed CMR of dS0s is well matched by models with relatively long delayed star formation. Our results suggest that dS0s are most likely transitional objects at the stage of subsequent transformation of late-type progenitors to ordinary red dEs in the cluster environment, In any case, UV photometry provides a powerful tool to disentangle the diverse subpopulations of early-type dwarf galaxies and uncover their evolutionary histories.

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Early-type Dwarf Galaxies in the Virgo Cluster: An Ultraviolet Perspective

  • Kim, Suk;Rey, Soo-Chang;Sung, Eon-Chang;Lisker, Thorsten;Jerjen, Helmut;Lee, Youngdae;Chung, Jiwon;Pak, Mina
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.37 no.2
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    • pp.81-81
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    • 2012
  • Since the ultraviolet (UV) flux of an integrated population is a good tracer of recent star formation activities, UV observations provide an important constraint on star formation history (SFH) in galaxies. We present UV color-magnitude relations (CMRs) of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster, based on Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) UV data and the Extended Virgo Cluster Catalog (EVCC, Kim, S. in prep.). The EVCC covers an area 5.4 times larger (750 deg2) than the footprint of the classical Virgo cluster catalog by Binggeli and collaborators. We secure 1304 galaxies as members of the Virgo cluster and 526 galaxies of them are new objects not contained in the VCC. Morphological classification of galaxies in the EVCC is based on the optical image ("Primary Classification") and spectral feature ("Secondary Classification") of the SDSS data. We find that dwarf lenticular galaxies (dS0s) show a surprisingly distinct and tight locus separated from that of ordinary dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs), which is not clearly seen in previous CMRs. The dS0s in UV CMRs follow a steeper sequence than dEs and show bluer UV-optical color at a given magnitude. Most early type dwarf galaxies with blue UV colors (FUV-r < 6 and NUV-r < 4) are identified as those showing spectroscopic hints of recent or ongoing star formation activities. We explore the observed CMRs with population models of a luminosity-dependent delayed exponential star formation history. The observed CMR of dS0s is well matched with models with relatively long delayed star formation. Our results suggest that dS0s are most likely transitional objects at the stage of subsequent transformation of late-type progenitors to ordinary red dEs in the cluster environment. In any case, UV photometry provides a powerful tool to disentangle the diverse subpopulations of early-type dwarf galaxies and uncover their evolutionary histories.

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Internal kinematics of dwarf early-type galaxies with blue-center in the Virgo Cluster from Gemini GMOS long-slit spectroscopy

  • Chung, Jiwon;Rey, Soo-Chang;Sung, Eon-Chang;Lee, Youngdae;Kim, Suk;Lee, Woong
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.41 no.1
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    • pp.33.1-33.1
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    • 2016
  • Dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs), the most abundant galaxy type in clusters, were recently shown to exhibit a wide variety in their properties. Particularly, the presence of blue cores in some dEs, what we call dE(bc), supports the scenario of late-type galaxy infall and subsequent transformation into red, quiescent dEs. While several transformation mechanisms for these dE(bc)s within cluster environment have been proposed, all these processes are able to explain only some of the observational properties of dEs. In this context, internal kinematic properties of dE(bc)s provide the most crucial evidence to discriminate different processes for the formation of these galaxies. We present Gemini Multi Object Spectrograph (GMOS) long-slit spectroscopy of two dE(bc)s in the Virgo cluster. We obtained radial profiles of velocity and velocity dispersion out to ~1.3 effective radius. We found that two dE(bc)s exhibit kinematically decoupled components as well as distinct peculiar features in velocity profiles, supporting the scenario of mergers. We also found that these galaxies are structurally compatible with low surface brightness component of blue compact dwarf galaxies. We suggest that a part of dE(bc)s in the Virgo Cluster were formed through galaxy merger in low density environment such as galaxy group or outskirt of the cluster, and then were quenched by subsequent effects within cluster environment.

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UV Perspective for Dynamically Old and Young Clusters of Galaxies: Fornax and Virgo

  • Lee, Young-Dae;Rey, Soo-Chang;Pak, Min-A;Kim, Suk;Sung, Eon-Chang;Yi, Won-Hyeong;Chung, Ji-Won
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.36 no.2
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    • pp.76.1-76.1
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    • 2011
  • We present ultraviolet (UV) photometric properties of galaxies in two clusters, the Fornax and Virgo, with different dynamical conditions. We construct UV color-magnitude relations (CMRs) of galaxies in the Fornax and Virgo clusters using GALEX UV data matching with optical B band data. Elliptical and lenticular galaxies locate on red sequence in UV CMRs and show UV upturn phenomenon in both clusters. While dwarf lenticular galaxies (dS0s) in the Fornax also follow the extension of red sequence of giant early type galaxies, they are redder than dS0s in the Virgo at a given magnitude. We also investigated the effect of neighbor galaxies and cluster environment to the UV properties. In the space of projected clustercentric radius and projected nearest neighbor galaxy distance, we found that red (NUV-B>3) galaxy fraction of the Fornax depends entirely on clustercentric radius. However, in the case of Virgo, galaxy colors are also affected by interactions between galaxies outside the cluster virial radius. We suggest that UV properties of early-type galaxies in the Fornax cluster is likely consistent with its dynamically evolved system compared to the Virgo cluster.

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A Study of Globular Cluster Systems in the Coma, Fornax, and Virgo Clusters of Galaxies from HST ACS and WFC3/IR Imaging

  • Cho, Hyejeon
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.42 no.1
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    • pp.29.1-29.1
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    • 2017
  • I present new near-infrared (NIR) photometry of globular cluster (GC) systems associated to a cD galaxy NGC 4874 in the core of the Coma cluster and 16 early-type galaxies in the Fornax and Virgo clusters of galaxies using the Infrared Channel of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3/IR) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Combining these high-resolution NIR data with new HST Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) optical photometry for NGC 4874 and existing ACS GC catalogs from the ACS Fornax and Virgo Cluster Surveys, I have examined for the first time the GC systems in a statistically significant optical/NIR sample of galaxies spanning a wide range of luminosities and colors. A primary goal of this study is to explore empirically whether the distributions of purely optical and hybrid optical - NIR color indices for extragalactic GCs have different forms and whether the relations between these color indices are nonlinear, indicating that they behave differently with underlying metallicity. I find that some GC systems of large galaxies in our sample show color bimodalities that differ between the optical and optical - NIR colors, in the sense that they have disparate ratios of "blue" and "red" peak GCs, as well as differing ratios in their color dispersions. Consistent with these results, I find empirically that the dependence of hybrid optical-NIR color on purely optical color is nonlinear, with an inflection at intermediate metallicities. These findings underscore the importance of understanding the nature of galaxy-to-galaxy variations in the GC color distributions and color-color relations, as well as the exact forms of the color-metallicity transformations, in interpreting the observational data on GC color bimodality. Our ACS data for NGC 4874 shows that its GC system exhibits a very strong blue tilt, implying a very steep mass-metallicity scaling, and the centroid of this GC system is offset by $4{\pm}1kpc$ from the luminosity center of NGC 4874, in the direction of NGC 4872. Finally, I discuss the asymmetrical GC distribution around a dwarf elliptical galaxy in Coma that has a very high relative velocity with respect to the cluster mean at small clustercentric radius.

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The Shape and Virial Theorem of a Star Cluster in the Galactic Tidal Force Field

  • Lee, See-Woo;Rood, Herbert J.
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.1-9
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    • 1969
  • On the instantaneous tidal relaxation approximation, formulae are derived for the ellipticities and virial theorem of a slightly flattened homogeneous rotating cluster (the largest axis of the cluster is directed towards the Galactic center), in terms of the Galactic tidal force and the characteristic intrinsic plus orbital angular velocity. The expression for a purely tidally-determined ellipticity is identical to that for an incompressible fluid body of uniform density. Orbital motion generally contributes significantly to the shape of the cluster. The virial theorem is identical to that for an isolated cluster except that the gravitational potential energy is multiplied by (1-${\chi}$), where ${\chi}$ is a positive tidal correction term. To obtain the actual mass of a cluster, the virial theorem mass based on an isolated cluster should be multiplied by the factor 1/(1-${\chi}$). The formulae are applied to open star clusters, the globular cluster ${\omega}$ Centauri, and dwarf elliptical galaxies in the Local Group.

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