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Do mergers make (normal) ellipticals?

Chris Mihos
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Abstract

Under the merger hypothesis, elliptical galaxies are built through mergers of gas-rich spirals. However, the relative paucity of HI in most normal ellipticals demands significant processing of atomic gas into other forms if this process is to be viable. Here I present a few qualitative remarks on how the properties of merger-spawned ellipticals might depend on the (evolving) gas content of the progenitor disks, then turn to a more quantitative study of the constraints provided by the nuclear properties of ellipticals and merger remnants.

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Chris Mihos. 2000-09-06. Do mergers make (normal) ellipticals?. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0009099

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