MNRAS 000,1– ?? (2021) Preprint 16 August 2021 Compiled using MNRAS LATEX style file v3.0 Mapping Accreted Stars in Early-Type Galaxies Across the Mass-Size Plane Thomas A. Davison,1,2¢ Mark A. Norris2, Ryan Leaman3,4, Harald Kuntschner1, Alina Boecker4, Glenn van de Ven3 1European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, D-87548 Garching bei Muenchen, Germany 2Jeremiah Horrocks Institute, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK 3Department of Astrophysics, University of Vienna, Türkenschanzstraße 17, A-1180 Vienna, Austria 4Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany Accepted XXX. Received YYY; in original form ZZZ ABSTRACT Galaxy mergers are instrumental in dictating the final mass, structure, stellar populations, and kinematics of galaxies. Cosmo- logical galaxy simulations indicate that the most massive galaxies at z=0 are dominated by high fractions of ‘ex-situ’ stars, which formed first in distinct independent galaxies, and then subsequently merged into the host galaxy. Using spatially resolved MUSE spectroscopy we quantify and map the ex-situ stars in thirteen massive Early Type galaxies. We use full spectral fitting together with semi-analytic galaxy evolution models to isolate the signatures in the galaxies’ light which are indicative of ex-situ populations. Using the large MUSE field of view we find that all galaxies display an increase in ex-situ fraction with radius, with massive and more extended galaxies showing a more rapid increase in radial ex-situ fraction, (reaching values between ∼30% to 100% at 2 effective radii) compared to less massive and more compact sources (reaching between ∼5% to 40% ex-situ fraction within the same radius). These results are in line with predictions from theory and simulations which suggest ex-situ fractions should increase significantly with radius at fixed mass for the most massive galaxies. Key words: galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD – galaxies: evolution – galaxies: formation – galaxies: kinematics and dynamics – galaxies: stellar content 1 INTRODUCTION metallicity. GCs are found to display complex colour distributions in nearly every massive galaxy system studied (e.g. Zinn 1985; Larsen There are many indications from both observational and theoretical et al. 2001; Brodie & Strader 2006; Yoon et al. 2006; Peng et al. 2006; astrophysics that massive galaxies form ‘inside out’. This suggests Villaume et al. 2019; Fahrion et al. 2020). Red globular clusters are that galaxies begin as a core of stars formed in-situ, and grow larger thought to be closely linked to in-situ formation or very massive through both additional in-situ star formation and through the accre- mergers with higher metallicities, whereas their blue counterparts tion of smaller galaxies (Trujillo & Pohlen 2005; Auger et al. 2011; are more indicative of acquisition from lower mass galaxies with Pérez et al. 2013; Van Der Burg et al. 2015). As such, a gradient in lower metallicities. A result of this is that merging low-mass systems stellar population parameters can be imprinted on a galaxy, with the frequently provide GCs of low-metallicity, in stark contrast to in-situ largely in-situ core giving way to a more ex-situ dominated outskirts. metal rich GCs (Choksi et al. 2018; Forbes & Remus 2018). These Kinematic and population gradients have been found to exist fre- GC properties can be used to diagnose both merger history as well as quently in galaxies (e.g. Norris et al. 2006; Naab et al. 2009; Spolaor arXiv:2108.06160v1 [astro-ph.GA] 13 Aug 2021 gradients of ex-situ fraction (Forbes et al. 2015; Kruijssen et al. 2018; et al. 2010; Guérou et al. 2016; Sarzi, M. et al. 2018; Pinna, F. et al. Beasley et al. 2018; Mackey et al. 2019), however this is complicated 2019; Dolfi et al. 2020; Simons et al. 2020) however specific treat- by uncertain mappings between colour and metallicity, and uncertain ments to separate intrinsic gradients in the in-situ populations from ages of old GCs in systems outside the Local Group. those resulting from distributions of ex-situ material is a challenging task. This is largely a product of the difficulty in navigating around Further evidence of a two-phase galaxy assembly scenario is de- complex and interconnected secular processes that, additionally to rived from the faint stellar envelopes of massive galaxies. In Huang accretion, can provide gradients in stellar populations and kinemat- et al.(2018) (and building on work from Huang et al. 2013) the ics. As a result, disentangling the evidence of mergers is difficult to authors use deep imaging to study the stellar halos of around 7000 do via photometry, or from average metallicities and ages. massive galaxies from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey (Ai- Evidence of this two-phase galaxy assembly also comes in the hara et al. 2018) out to ¡100kpc. The authors find that surface mass form of bimodality of globular star clusters (GCs) in colour and density profiles show relative homogeneity within the central 10- 20kpc of the galaxies, however the scatter in this profile increases significantly with radius. Furthermore the authors find that the stellar ¢ E-mail: [email protected] halos become more prominent and more elliptical with increasing © 2021 The Authors 2 T. Davison et al. stellar mass. This is in line with a two-phase formation scenario in this is dependent on galaxy ‘class’ (with division based upon radial which central galaxy regions are formed by relatively stable in-situ stellar density profiles), see their figure 6 for detail. processes, and the outskirts are formed through far more stochastic Similarly in analyses of the EAGLE simulations (Schaye et al. accretion and so show a greater scatter in the surface mass density. 2015b; Crain et al. 2015), almost all galaxies are found to contain This is also found to be the case in Oyarzún et al.(2019) in which the a non-negligable quantity of accreted stellar mass (Davison et al. authors find a flattening in the metallicity profile of z<0.15 early type 2020). Clearly the influence of ex-situ populations from mergers and galaxies beyond a radius of 1.5r4, and conclude the most reasonable fly-bys on galaxy evolution is profound, influencing the composi- explanation of this is stellar accretion to the galaxy outskirts. This tion, kinematics and star formation mechanisms of a galaxy. Stellar result is also seen for samples of brightest cluster galaxies (Edwards material acquired in mergers has been shown to be the key con- et al. 2020) who likewise find signatures of the two-phase scenario tributor to stellar mass in massive galaxies. As shown in Davison 9 in profiles of kinematics and metallicity. et al.(2020), the lowest mass galaxies analysed (M ∗ ≈1×10 M ) Simulations of galaxy formation also show strong preferences for comprise of 10±5% ex-situ stars. This increases with mass up to the 12 galaxies to evolve through frequent mergers, and by accreting ma- most massive galaxies in the simulation (M∗ ≈2×10 M ) which terial to their outskirts (Kobayashi 2004; Zolotov et al. 2009; Oser are comprised of 80±9% ex-situ stars. Interestingly this work high- et al. 2010; Navarro-González et al. 2013; van der Wel et al. 2014; lighted trends in ex-situ fraction with galaxy density, showing that at Rodriguez-Gomez et al. 2016a). This is particularly clear for the most fixed mass more extended galaxies would on average contain higher massive ellipticals which show strong gradients of increasing ex-situ fractions of ex-situ stars. fraction with galactocentric radius, as well as high total fractions of With the recent advancement in integral field spectroscopy, galax- 12 ex-situ stars (with galaxies of mass M ¡ 1.7×10 M being com- ies are being studied spectroscopically as spatially resolved objects, posed of populations with an ex-situ fraction of ≈90%) (Oser et al. detailing spectral differences with galactocentric radius, and physical 2010; Lackner et al. 2012; Rodriguez-Gomez et al. 2016a; Pillepich location within a galaxy (see e.g. Guérou et al. 2016; Mentz et al. et al. 2018; Davison et al. 2020). Despite clear trends in ex-situ frac- 2016). Instruments such as SAURON at the WHT, GCMS (VIRUS- tion, these galaxies show a strong overlap between in- and ex-situ pop- P) on the 2.7m Harlan J. Smith telescope and MUSE (Multi-unit ulations within 2 effective radii (Pillepich et al. 2015) which causes spectroscopic explorer) at the VLT (Bacon et al. 2001; Hill et al. difficulty in photometric approaches to ex-situ population extraction 2008; Bacon et al. 2010) with their ∼1 arcminute field of views have (see also Remus & Forbes 2021). Modern photometric methods for been critical to the development of this field, and are a few of the identification of accreted stars and signatures of interaction (such as integral field units (IFUs) driving this particular area of research. tidal features) are able to accurately identify stellar features in the IFUs have significantly widened the field of galactic archaeology stellar halo (e.g. Duc et al. 2015; Morales et al. 2018; Martinez- for nearby galaxies as they have allowed for more thorough spatial Delgado et al. 2021a). Advanced deep-imaging methods can identify investigations of population distributions. Derived population maps features of interaction out to 10 effective radii (Jackson et al. 2021). can provide powerful insights into visual features, kinematics, and Despite these ongoing advances in treatments of photometric data, evolution (see e.g. Comerón et al. 2015; Faifer et al. 2017; Ge et al. most have difficulty accurately quantifying ex-situ fractions in the 2019; Davison et al. 2021). centres of galaxies (<2r4) especially for ancient mergers which have Alongside these advancements in instrumentation are equally im- largely diffused in projection space.