Evolution of Elliptical Galaxies
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Evolution of Elliptical Galaxies Teresa Lym Kroeker A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Astmnomy University of To~onto @ Copyright by Teresa Lynn Kroeker (1998) National Library Bibliothèque.nationale m+1 0fCmada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaON KlAON4 OttawaON K1AON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Li'brary of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distn'bute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfichelnlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Evolution of Elliptical Galaxies Doctor of Philosophy 1998 Teresa Lynn Kroeker Graduate Department of Astronomy, University of Toronto Abstract In the first part of this thesis early-type galaxies in Arp groups are examined to deter- mine if any recent mergers have occurred. No unusud rotation curves are found to indicate a merger event in the four out of eleven eady-type galaxies with suftiùent signal-to-noise ratio. Minor axis rotation is another sign of peculiar kinematics and it too is not detected in the four galaxies with strong rotation and for which the slit positions are aligned along the major and minor axes. The average velocity dispersion of this sample of Arp gd&e~ is 7 * 4% lower than other early-type galaxies, but otherwise these galaxies appear to be in- distinguishable fiom normal galaxies. The lack of strong emission lines indicates that these galaxies have not undergone recent star formation wit h the exception of two galaxies which are currently interacting with other members of their group. There is no strong evidence in these Arp groups of recent mergers. These results are in agreement with other authors who find that the occurrence of recent major merger events in compact groups is rare. The Fundamental Plane is a superior tool to either the Faber-Jackson or luminosity- size relation for the study of the luminosity and mass-telight ratio evolution of early-type galaxies in clusters. Surface brightness selection effects will cause the Faber-Jackson relation to underestimate the liiminosity evolution. These selection effects are clearly demonstrated for the cluster Abell 2390. Sudace brightness selection efFects will &O affect the results derived fkom the luminosity-size relation but to a lesser degree. The Fundamental Plane analysis is insensitive to surface brightness selection dects and t herefore produces reliable results. Comparing the Fundamental Planes of the Coma cluster, a nearby cluster, and Abell 2390, a distant cluster, we hdthe evolution in luminosity is AMB(AB) = -0.54 f 0.11. The mass-telight ratios increase by 20?::% between Abell 2390 (z = 0.23) and Coma (z = 0.023). This weak evolution in mas-to-light ratio favours high formation redshifts for early-type galaxies in clusters. These results are consistent with those found by other authors. The results of this thesis support the formation of early-type galaxies at redshifts greater than 2, and seems to rule out any sigdicant formation at redshifts less than 1. 1 wish to thank my supervisor, Dr. Ray Carlberg, for suggesting the subject of this thesis, his guidance and encouragement. Thanks are &O due to Dr. Chris Pritchet, Dr. David Schade, Dr. Howard Yee for providing both data and assistance in data reduction techniques. I wodd also Iike to thank the members of my PhD Oral Examination Committee for their helpful comments on this manuscript. There are many people with which I had useful discussions (and who were willing to answer the many questions 1 had) about science, computers, and more general topics that 1would also like to thank: Felipe Barrientos, Dr. James Brown, Dr. Charles Dyer, Dr. Pierre Gravel, Dr. Sylvie Landry, Dr. Huan Lin, Sandra Scott, and ail my past and present student colleagues. Very special thanks are due to Dr. John Harper for his support and encourage- ment. Without his help and understanding I would not have completed thiç thesis. I would also like to thank my family for their support and understanding. This research has been supported by scholarships from the Department of Astron- omy, University of Toronto and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Contents Abstract i Acknowledgement s ii List of Tables v List of Figures vii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 GalaxyTypes ............................... 2 1.2 Galaxy Formation and Environment ................... 3 1.3 Mergers and Interactions ......................... 4 1.4 Formation and Evolution of Early-Type Galaxies ........... 5 1.5 Mergers and Arp Galaxies ........................ 9 1.6 The -damental Plane of Coma and Abel1 2390 ........... 10 1.7 Outline of Thesis ............................. 13 2 Fourier Quotient and Bayesian Methods 14 2.1 Fourier Quotient Method (ff) ...................... 17 2.2 Bayesian Method (spec) ......................... 19 2.3 Comparisonofffandspec ....................... 21 3 Arp Galaxies 25 3.1 Data and Initial Reductions ....................... 27 3.1.1 Observations ........................... 27 3.1.2 Reductions ............................ 29 3.1.3 Background Subtraction ..................... 34 3.2 Tests of the Fourier Quotient Program ................. 35 3.2.1 TestswithSimulatedData .................... 35 3.2.2 Tests with Templates ....................... 46 3.2.3 Tests with Broadened Templates ................ 51 3.2.4 Tests with Actual Data ...................... 56 3.3 Kinernatics ................................ 64 3.4 Line Emission ............................... 75 3.5 Faber-Jackson Relation .......................... 77 3.6 Summary ................................. 79 4 Velocity Dispersions of Distant Galaxies 82 4.1 Observations ................................ 83 4.2 Data .................................... 85 4.2.1 GaIaxy Spectra .......................... 85 4.2.2 Template Spectra ......................... 89 4.3 Tests with Simulated Data ........................ 97 4.3.1 Creation of Test Data ...................... 97 4.3.2 No Noise Tests .......................... 97 4.3.3 Noise Tests ............................ 100 4.3.4 Mismatched Spectra Tests .................... 109 4.3.5 Tests with broadened spectra .................. 116 4.3.6 Summary ............................. 118 4.4 Analysis using the Bayesian Method .................. 119 4.5 Analysis using the Fourier Quotient Method .............. 135 4.6 Discussion ................................. 145 5 Fundamental Plane of Abell2390 148 5.1 Photometry ................................ 150 5.1.1 Coma ............................... 150 List of Tables 2.1 Cornparison of ff and spec velocities .................. 22 2.2 Cornparison of ff and spec velocity dispersions ............. 23 3.1 Environment of the Arp Galaxies .................... 28 3.2 Exposure information for the Arp Galaxies .............. 30 3.3 Exposure information for the Stellar Templates ............ 31 3.4 Cornparison of non zero velocity tests (variable intenal widths) .... 40 3.5 Cornparison of non zero velociw tests (single inted widths) ..... 44 3.6 Comparison of noise tests with zero noise tests (single interval widths). 45 3.7 The mean velocity of each star fkom all of the templates ........ 48 3.8 The mean velocity dispersion of each star relative to ail templates ... 49 3.9 The mean line strength of each star £rom dl of the templates ..... 50 3.10 Ranks of the velocity dispersion and line strength of the templates . 51 3.11 Central Velocity Dispersions of the Arp Galaxies ........... 60 3.12 Summary of resdts for the Arp Galaxies ................ 74 Preliminary redshift estimates. magnitudes. and wavelength bits . 86 Sbline wavelengths ............................ 87 Skylines .................................. 91 Template lines with FWHM < 1.5A ................... 93 Template lines with FWHM < 1.2A ................... 93 Fourier Quotient Test Results (No Noise) ................ 98 Spec Test Results (No Noise) ...................... 99 Test results for input velocity dispersion of 250 km& ......... 104 4.9 Cornparison with galaxy S/N ratios ................... 108 4.10 Mismatched Spectra Parameters ..................... 110 4.11 Redshifts for the templates for each galaxy ............... 121 4.12 Results fiom spec for shifted template spectra ............. 121 4.13 Results fiom ff for shifted template spectra ............... 122 4.14 Results fiom spec for both unbroadened templates (wsO and MO) . 123 4.15 Results fiom spec for unbroadened and broadened ws templates ... 134 4.16 Results from ff using the unbroadened ws template .......... 136 4.17 Results hom ff for both unbroadened templates (wsO and nsO) .... 137 4.18 Results from ff for unbroadened and broadened ws templates ..... 138 4.19 Results fiom the medium boxcar broadened ws template for both ff andspec.................................