Ongoing assembly of massive galaxies by major merging in large groups and clusters from the SDSS

By D. H. Mcintosh, Yicheng Guo, J. Hertzberg, Neal Katz, H. Mo, F. V. D. Bosch, Xiaohu Yang University of Massachusetts, M. F. Astronomy, S. Observatory. 2007

132 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We investigate the incidence of major mergers creating massive (Mstar > 10 11 M� ) galaxies in present-day (z ≤ 0.12) groups and clusters. Using a volume-limited sample of 845 groups with dark matter halo masses above 2.5 × 10 13 M � , we isolate 221 galaxy pairs with ≤1.5 r-band magnitude differences, ≤30 kpc projected separations and combined masses above 10 11 M� . We fit the r-band images of each pair as the line-of-sight projection of symmetric models and identify 38 mergers by the presence of residual asymmetric structure associated with both progenitors, such as non-concentric isophotes, broad and diffuse tidal tails and dynamical friction wakes. In other words, at the resolution and sensitivity of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), 16 per cent of massive major pairs in dense environments have mutual tidal interaction signatures; relying on automated searches of major pairs from the SDSS spectroscopic galaxy sample will result in missing 70 per cent of these mergers owing to spectroscopic incompleteness in high-density regions. We find that 90 per cent of these mergers are between two nearly equal-mass progenitors with red-sequence colours and centrally concentrated morphologies, in agreement with numerical simulations that predict that an important mechanism for the formation of massive elliptical galaxies is the dissipationless (gas-poor or so-called dry) major merging of spheroid-dominated galaxies. We identify seven additional massive mergers with disturbed morphologies and semiresolved double nuclei; thus, 1.5 ± 0.2 per cent of Mstar ≥ (5)

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

MINOR MERGERS AND THE SIZE EVOLUTION OF ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES (2009, background): “…early-type galaxies may undergo not more than one major merger (with typi- cally low cool gas content, see also Whitaker & van Dokkum 2008) since z = 0.7 (Bell et al. 2006a, see also McIntosh et al. 2008) with a significant contribution from minor mergers for the mass buildup (Bundy et al. 2009).”
THE FREQUENCY OF TIDAL FEATURES ASSOCIATED WITH NEARBY LUMINOUS ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES FROM A STATISTICALLY COMPLETE SAMPLE (2009, methodology): “This quantitative approach facilitates comparison to simulations (e.g. Feldmann et al. 2008) and other data (e.g. McIntosh et al. 2008).”
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).”
Galaxy Zoo: Disentangling the Environmental Dependence of Morphology and Colour ⋆ (2008, background): “The scale of the upturn in the mark correlation function has a simple physical explanation: mergers tend to occupy slightly denser environments than average, often in galaxy groups (McIntosh et al. 2008, Darg et al. 2009b).”
Physical properties and environments of nearby galaxies (2009, methodology): “More objective samples have been created by measuring asymmetry and/or using unsharp-masking techniques (De Propris et al. 2007; McIntosh et al. 2008).”
THE GROWTH OF MASSIVE GALAXIES SINCE z = 2 (2009, result): “…that dominates the build-up of the outer regions sincez= 1.5 is likely some form of merging or accretion, consistent with many previous studies (e.g., van Dokkum et al. 1999; van Dokkum 2005; Tran et al. 2005; Bell et al. 2006; White et al. 2007; McIntosh et al. 2008; Naab et al. 2007, 2009).”
The DEEP3 Galaxy Redshift Survey: the impact of environment on the size evolution of massive early-type galaxies at intermediate redshift (2011, background): “…are not preferentially found in overdense regions at z ∼ 1 (Coil et al. 2007), mergers are more common in higher density environments such as galaxy groups (Cavaliere, Colafrancesco & Menci 1992; McIntosh et al. 2008; Wetzel et al. 2008; Fakhouri & Ma 2009; Darg et al. 2010; Lin et al. 2010).”
How do minor mergers promote inside-out growth of ellipticals, transforming the size, density profile and dark matter fraction? (2012, background): “…merger and accretion events (Malin & Carter 1983; Schweizer & Seitzer 1992; Tran et al. 2005; van Dokkum 2005; Bell et al. 006a,b; Faber 2007; McIntosh et al. 2008; Whitaker & van Dokkum 2008; Robaina et al. 2010; Duc 2011; Lotz et al. 2011; Trujillo et al. 2011; Weinzirl et al. 2011; Tal et…”
THE COS-HALOS SURVEY: RATIONALE, DESIGN, AND A CENSUS OF CIRCUMGALACTIC NEUTRAL HYDROGEN (2013, methodology): “From these k-corrected magnitudes we derived estimated stellar masses using the relation of McIntosh et al. (2008).”