THE FREQUENCY OF TIDAL FEATURES ASSOCIATED WITH NEARBY LUMINOUS ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES FROM A STATISTICALLY COMPLETE SAMPLE

By T. Tal, P. V. van Dokkum, Jenica E. Nelan, R. Bezanson. 2009

214 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a deep broadband optical imaging study of a complete sample of luminous elliptical galaxies (MB < −20) at distances 15–50 Mpc, selected from the Tully catalog of nearby galaxies. The images are flat to ∼0.35% across the 20′ field and reach a V-band depth of 27.7 mag arcsec−2. We derive an objective tidal interaction parameter for all galaxies and find that 73% of them show tidal disturbance signatures in their stellar bodies. This is the first time that such an analysis is done on a statistically complete sample and it confirms that tidal features in ellipticals are common even in the local universe. From the dynamical time of the sample galaxies at the innermost radius where tidal features are detected, we estimate the mass assembly rate of nearby ellipticals to be dM/M ∼ 0.2 per Gyr with large uncertainty. We explore the relation between gravitational interaction signatures and the galaxy environment and find that galaxies in clusters are less disturbed than group and field galaxies. We also study how these interactions affect the broadband colors of ellipticals and find a moderate correlation, suggesting that the mergers are not accompanied by significant star formation. Finally, we find no correlation between active galactic nucleus activity, as measured by 6 cm radio emission, and large-scale tidal distortions. This implies that gravitational interactions are not the only, and perhaps not the most important, trigger of nuclear activity. In summary, we find that elliptical galaxies in groups and low-density environments continue to grow at the present day through mostly “dry” mergers involving little star formation.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2e6b478e12052448a2b9c3cfbf2d2bbdf024b91e

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Citations in the corpus

WIDE-FIELD PRECISION KINEMATICS OF THE M87 GLOBULAR CLUSTER SYSTEM (2011, background): “The outer kinematics in both cases also suggest significant infall and accretion, even though no major disturbances are apparent in optical imaging (e.g., Tal et al. 2009).”
The ATLAS3D project - XXIX. The new look of early-type galaxies and surrounding fields disclosed by extremely deep optical images (2014, methodology): “• Tal et al. (2009) used pointed observations with the SMARTS 1m telescope to determine the frequency of tidal features in a sample of 55 elliptical galaxies.”
THE BULK OF THE BLACK HOLE GROWTH SINCE z ∼ 1 OCCURS IN A SECULAR UNIVERSE: NO MAJOR MERGER–AGN CONNECTION (2010, result): “…studies that have used a control sample (Dunlop et al. 2003; Grogin et al. 2003, 2005; Pierce et al. 2007; Gabor et al. 2009; Reichard et al. 2009; Tal et al. 2009, and also with recent results from the E-CDFS by Böhm et al. 2010, submitted), in the sense that the morphologies of the AGN host…”
Illuminating Low Surface Brightness Galaxies with the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey (2017, background): “Such studies have the potential to constrain the mass assembly rate of galaxies (van Dokkum 2005; Tal et al. 2009) and probe the orbital distributions of infalling satellite galaxies (Hendel & Johnston 2015) throughout the universe.”
FEEDBACK FROM CENTRAL BLACK HOLES IN ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES. III. MODELS WITH BOTH RADIATIVE AND MECHANICAL FEEDBACK (2010, result): “We note that the possibility of QSO activity even in absence of merging, has also been recently proposed also by others (e.g., Li et al. 2008, Kauffmann & Heckman 2009, Tal et al. 2009).”
WHAT TURNS GALAXIES OFF? THE DIFFERENT MORPHOLOGIES OF STAR-FORMING AND QUIESCENT GALAXIES SINCE z ∼ 2 FROM CANDELS (2011, background): “…structure of early-type galaxies (Naab et al. 2006; Hoffman et al. 2010); and, the empirical association between relatively younger stellar populations and substructure (tidal tails, shells, asymmetries, etc.) in quiescent galaxies (Schweizer & Seitzer 1992; Tal et al. 2009; Gy̋ory & Bell 2010).”
Ultra–Low Surface Brightness Imaging with the Dragonfly Telephoto Array (2014, background): “However, deep imaging surveys with standard reflecting telescopes typically reach surface brightness levels of ‘only’ ∼ 28 mag arcsec−2 (e.g. van Dokkum 2005; Tal et al. 2009; Mart́ınez-Delgado et al. 2010; Atkinson et al. 2013).”
Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – II. The effect of environment on interactions (2010, background): “Observationally, massive clustergalaxies show a lower incidence of interaction (through asymmetries) than galaxies in groups or the field (McIntosh et al. 2008; Liuet al 2009; Tal et al 2009).”
Galactic accretion and the outer structure of galaxies in the CDM model (2013, background): “…have been detected around both early and late type galaxies (Malin & Carter 1983; Schweizer 1980; Schweizer et al. 1990; Schweizer & Seitzer 1992; Tal et al. 2009; Martı́nez-Delgado et al. 2010a) and can also be readily explained as the result of galactic accretion in a cold dark matter (CDM)…”
THE GROWTH OF MASSIVE GALAXIES SINCE z = 2 (2009, methodology): “The grey histogram shows the measured dispersions of the galaxies from the OBEY sample (Tal et al. 2009) that make up ourz= 0 stack (see Appendix D).”