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arXiv · 1308.2682

The Stellar Halos of Massive Elliptical Galaxies II: Detailed Abundance Ratios at Large Radius

Jenny E Greene·Jeremy D Murphy·Genevieve J Graves·James E Gunn·Sudhir Raskutti·Julia M Comerford·Karl Gebhardt
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Abstract

We study the radial dependence in stellar populations of 33 nearby early-type galaxies with central stellar velocity dispersions sigma* > 150 km/s. We measure stellar population properties in composite spectra, and use ratios of these composites to highlight the largest spectral changes as a function of radius. Based on stellar population modeling, the typical star at 2 R_e is old (~10 Gyr), relatively metal poor ([Fe/H] -0.5), and alpha-enhanced ([Mg/Fe]~0.3). The stars were made rapidly at z~1.5-2 in shallow potential wells. Declining radial gradients in [C/Fe], which follow [Fe/H], also arise from rapid star formation timescales due to declining carbon yields from low-metallicity massive stars. In contrast, [N/Fe] remains high at large radius. Stars at large radius have different abundance ratio patterns from stars in the center of any present-day galaxy, but are similar to Milky Way thick disk stars. Our observations are thus consistent with a picture in which the stellar outskirts are built up through minor mergers with disky galaxies whose star formation is truncated early (z~1.5-2).

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Jenny E Greene, Jeremy D Murphy, Genevieve J Graves, James E Gunn, Sudhir Raskutti, Julia M Comerford, Karl Gebhardt. 2013-08-12. The Stellar Halos of Massive Elliptical Galaxies II: Detailed Abundance Ratios at Large Radius. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/776/2/64

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