Dynamical Properties of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies. I. Mass Ratio Conditions for ULIRG Activity in Interacting Pairs

By K. Dasyra, L. Tacconi, Roger Davies, R. Genzel, D. Lutz, T. Naab, A. Burkert, Sylvain Veilleux, D. Sanders. 2005

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We present first results from our Very Large Telescope large program to study the dynamical evolution of ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs), which are the products of mergers of gas-rich galaxies. The full data set consists of high-resolution long-slit H- and K-band spectra of 38 ULIRGs and 12 QSOs (in the range 0.042 < z < 0.268). In this paper, we present the sources that have not fully coalesced and therefore have two distinct nuclei. This subsample consists of 21 ULIRGs, the nuclear separation of which varies between 1.6 and 23.3 kpc. From the CO band heads that appear in our spectra, we extract the stellar velocity dispersion, σ, and the rotational velocity, Vrot. The stellar dispersion equals 142 km s-1 on average, while Vrot is often of the same order. We combine our spectroscopic results with high-resolution infrared (IR) imaging data to study the conditions for ULIRG activity in interacting pairs. We find that the majority of ULIRGs are triggered by almost equal-mass major mergers of 1.5 : 1 average ratio. Less frequently, 3 : 1 encounters are also observed in our sample. However, less violent mergers of mass ratio >3 : 1 typically do not force enough gas into the center to generate ULIRG luminosities.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

Formation of z~6 Quasars from Hierarchical Galaxy Mergers (2006, background): “First, it is believed that major mergers play the most important role in the formation and evolution of massive galaxies (e.g., Sanders & Mirabel 1996; Scoville et al. 2000; Veilleux et al. 2002; Conselice et al. 2003; Dasyra et al. 2006).”
A DEEP HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE H-BAND IMAGING SURVEY OF MASSIVE GAS-RICH MERGERS. II. THE QUEST QSOs (2006, background): “Part of the spectroscopy has been presented in Dasyra et al. (2006).”
A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies. I. Galaxy Mergers and Quasar Activity (2007, background): “This is further supported by observational studies (Dasyra et al. 2006;Woods et al. 2006), which find that strong gas inflows and nuclear starbursts are typically seen only below these mass ratios, despite the much greater frequency of higher mass-ratio mergers.”
DISSIPATION AND EXTRA LIGHT IN GALACTIC NUCLEI. II. “CUSP” ELLIPTICALS (2008, background): “…mass ratio and the orbit (Hernquist 1989; Hernquist & Mihos 1995; Bournaud et al. 2005), but both numerical (Younger et al. 2008) and observational (Dasyra et al. 2006; Woods et al. 2006) studies indicate that massive inflows of gas and morphological transformation are typical for mass ratios only…”
STRUCTURE AND FORMATION OF ELLIPTICAL AND SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES (2008, background): “Their structural parameters are consistent with the fundamental plane (Kormendy & Sanders 1992; Doyon et al. 1994; Genzel et al. 2001; Tacconi et al. 2002; Veilleux et al. 2006; Dasyra et al. 2006a, b).”
Dissipation and Extra Light in Galactic Nuclei. I. Gas-Rich Merger Remnants (2008, background): “…of the interaction (Hernquist 1989; Hernquist&Mihos 1995;Bournaud et al. 2005), numerical studies (Younger et al. 2007a, 2007b) and observations (Dasyra et al. 2006; Woods et al. 2006) find that strong gas inflows and morphological 1 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60Garden Street,…”
OBSERVATIONS OF STARBURST GALAXIES WITH FAR-ULTRAVIOLET SPECTROGRAPHIC EXPLORER: GALACTIC FEEDBACK IN THE LOCAL UNIVERSE (2009, unknown): “We expect the K-band luminosity to trace the stellar mass to a factor of roughly 2 (e.g., Leitherer & Heckman 1995; Bell & de Jong 2001; Dasyra et al. 2006).”
Evolution of the Frequency of Luminous (≥LV⋆) Close Galaxy Pairs at z < 1.2 in the COSMOS Field (2007, background): “…with luminosities ≥ L∗ are likely to be responsible for some of the most luminous and rapid phases in galaxy evolution, including ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs: e.g., Kim & Sanders 1998; Dasyra et al. 2006) and quasi-stellar objects (QSOs: e.g., Veilleux et al. 2006; Guyon et al. 2006).”
How do massive black holes get their gas (2009, background): “Observationally, major mergers are associated with enhancements in star formation in ULIRGs, submillimetre galaxies and pairs more generally (e.g. Sanders & Mirabel 1996; Schweizer 1998; Dasyra et al. 2006; Jogee 2006; Woods, Geller & Barton 2006; Veilleux et al. 2009).”
MERGERS AND BULGE FORMATION IN ΛCDM: WHICH MERGERS MATTER? (2009, background): “…remnants (Schweizer 1982; Lake & Dressler 1986; Doyon et al. 1994; Shier & Fischer 1998; James et al. 1999; Genzel et al. 2001; Tacconi et al. 2002; Dasyra et al. 2006, 2007; Rothberg & Joseph 2004, 2006a; van Dokkum 1 Department of Astronomy, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA…”
Observational evidence for AGN feedback in early-type galaxies (2007, background): “Dasyra et al. (2006a, 2006b) and Veilleux et al. (2006) have analysed HST H-band imaging and VLT spectra of low redshift ULRIGs and QSOs and concluded that while most of them are ongoing mergers, their kinematic, structural, and photometric properties are consistent with them becoming elliptical…”
The influence of gas on the structure of merger remnants (2006, unknown): “…comparison of real nearby mergers with merger simulations are a powerful tool to constrain theories on elliptical galaxy formation and the effect of star formation and black-hole formation (Dasyra et al. 2006) in the local universe which then can be applied to simulations at all redshift ranges.”
The Relation between Quasar and Merging Galaxy Luminosity Functions and the Merger-driven Star Formation History of the Universe (2006, methodology): “In Figure 1 we plot M/LK of observed merging ULIRG pairs with masses determined from dynamical measurements in Dasyra et al. (2006) at t 1:2 Gyr, corresponding roughly to the stage at which the merging nuclear pair separations are comparable.”
DISSIPATION AND EXTRA LIGHT IN GALACTIC NUCLEI. IV. EVOLUTION IN THE SCALING RELATIONS OF SPHEROIDS (2008, background): “…mass ratio and the orbit (Hernquist 1989; Hernquist & Mihos 1995; Bournaud et al. 2005), but both numerical (Younger et al. 2008) and observational (Dasyra et al. 2006; Woods et al. 2006) studies indicate that massive inflows of gas and morphological transformation are typicalfor mass ratios only…”
THE IMPACT OF INTERACTIONS, BARS, BULGES, AND ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI ON STAR FORMATION EFFICIENCY IN LOCAL MASSIVE GALAXIES (2012, background): “…there is no one-to-one correlation between a high infrared luminosity (LFIR > 10 11L⊙) and the need for a low value of αCO, nor between morphological signs of merging and enhanced star formation activity (e.g. Bushouse et al. 1988; Alonso-Herrero et al. 2006; Dasyra et al. 2006; Cox et al. 2008).”
Galaxy merger morphologies and time-scales from simulations of equal-mass gas-rich disc mergers (2008, background): “All three morphological merger criteria are based on the Borne et al. (2000) observations of local ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs), a subset of which have been shown to be gasrich mergers with mass ratios between 1:3 and 1:1 (Dasyra et al. 2006).”
VLT/VIMOS integral field spectroscopy of luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies: 2D kinematic properties (2013, unknown): “These are also in good agreement with those found in Dasyra et al. (2006b), where ULIRGs show dynamical masses between sub- and∼ m⋆.”