Systematic Variations in Age and Metallicity Along the Early-Type Galaxy Sequence

Abstract

The form of the early-type galaxy scaling relation (the Fundamental Plane or FP) is a direct indicator of the underlying physical origins for the galaxy sequence. Observed properties of the FP include: (1) the slope increases with wavelength; (2) the slope deviates from the virial expectation (assuming homology and constant M/L) at all wavelengths; (3) the intercept evolves passively with redshift; and (4) the slope decreases slowly with redshift. The first property implies that stellar populations contribute to the slope of the FP, the second and fourth properties exclude metallicity effects as the sole cause of the slope, and the third implies that the stellar content of the "average" early-type galaxy formed at high redshift. A composite model--including variations in age and metallicity, as well as a wavelength-independent effect such as homology breaking--is presented which can fit all four observed properties. This model implies that the most luminous early-type galaxies contain the oldest and most metal-rich stars, while the lowest luminosity galaxies formed the bulk of their stars as recently at z_f~1.