2006/11/17 by Roeland P. van der Marel, Pieter G. van Dokkum · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Brightest cluster galaxy #Elliptical galaxy #Fundamental plane (elliptical galaxies) #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy cluster #Galaxy merger #Lenticular galaxy #Peculiar galaxy #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Velocity dispersion #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/521210
ApJ, submitted; 17 pages formatted with emulateapj
arxiv created 2006/11/17 · openalex publication_date 2007/10/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present spatially resolved stellar rotation velocity and velocity dispersion profiles from Keck/LRIS absorption-line spectra for 25 galaxies, mostly visually classified ellipticals, in three clusters at z ≈ 0.5. We interpret the kinematical data and HST photometry using oblate axisymmetric two-integral f ( E , L z ) dynamical models based on the Jeans equations. This yields good fits, provided that the seeing and observational characteristics are carefully modeled. The fits yield for each galaxy the dynamical mass-to-light ratio ( M / L ) and a measure of the galaxy rotation rate. Paper II addresses the implied M / L evolution. Here we study the rotation-rate evolution by comparison to a sample of local elliptical galaxies of similar present-day luminosity. The brightest galaxies in the sample all rotate too slowly to account for their flattening, as is also observed at z = 0. But the average rotation rate is higher at z ≈ 0.5 than locally. This may be due to a higher fraction of misclassified S0 galaxies (although this effect is insufficient to explain the observed strong evolution of the cluster S0 fraction with redshift). Alternatively, dry mergers between early-type galaxies may have decreased the average rotation rate over time. It is unclear whether such mergers are numerous enough in clusters to explain the observed trend quantitatively. Disk-disk mergers may affect the comparison through the so-called "progenitor bias," but this cannot explain the direction of the observed rotation-rate evolution. Additional samples are needed to constrain possible environmental dependencies and cosmic variance in galaxy rotation rates. Either way, studies of the internal stellar dynamics of distant galaxies provide a valuable new approach for exploring galaxy evolution.