Compact Elliptical Galaxies

High - redshift elliptical galaxies : are they ( all ) really compact ?

We investigate the properties of 12 ultramassive passively evolving early-type galaxies (ETGs) at zphot > 1.4 in the COSMOS 2 deg2 field. These 12 ETGs were selected as pBzKs, have accurate 1.4 zphot 1.7, high Sérsic index profiles typical of ellipticals, no detection at 24μm, resulting in a complete ETG sample at M∗ > 2.5 × 1011 M (Chabrier initial mass function). Contrary to the previous clai...

Binary Compact Object Coalescence Rates: the Role of Elliptical Galaxies

In this paper we estimate binary compact object merger detection rates for LIGO, including the potentially significant contribution from binaries that are produced in elliptical galaxies near the epoch of peak star formation. Specifically, we convolve hundreds of model realizations of ellipticaland spiralgalaxy population syntheses with a model for ellipticaland spiral-galaxy star formation his...

Elliptical Galaxies

Modes of Elliptical Galaxies

Long lived modes of elliptical galaxies can existà la van Kampen. Specific systems may possess long lived oscillations which Landau damp on time scales longer than a Hubble time. Some physical processes such as a close encounter, tidal forces from a cluster or an orbiting satellite could preferentially excite a coherent mode. These may relate to the observed faint structure in elliptical galaxi...

Dynamics of elliptical galaxies.

Elliptical galaxies were once thought to be similar in their structure and dynamics to rotationally flattened bodies like stars. The discovery that elliptical galaxies rotate much more slowly than a fluid body with the same shape has led to a qualitative change in our understanding of the dynamics of these systems. It is now believed that elliptical galaxies are fully triaxial in shape. Self-co...