Using the unique dataset obtained within the course of the SAURON project, a radically new view of the structure, dynamics and stellar populations of early-type galaxies has emerged. We show that ...galaxies come in two broad flavours (slow and fast rotators), depending on whether or not they exhibit clear large-scale rotation, as indicated via a robust measure of the specific angular momentum of baryons. This property is also linked with other physical characteristics of early-type galaxies, such as: the presence of dynamically decoupled cores, orbital structure and anisotropy, stellar populations and dark matter content. I here report on the observed link between this baryonic angular momentum and a mass sequence, and how this uniquely relates to the building of the red sequence via dissipative/dissipationless mergers and secular evolution.
2D stellar kinematics of 48 representative E and S0 galaxies obtained with the SAURON IFS reveal that early-type galaxies appear in two broad flavours, depending on whether they exhibit clear ...large-scale rotation or not. We define a new parameter LambdaR which involves luminosity weighted averages over the full 2D kinematic field, as a proxy to quantify the observed projected stellar angular momentum per unit mass. We use it as a basis for a new kinematic classification: early-type galaxies are separated into slow and fast rotators (SRs, FRs), depending on whether they have LambdaR values within their effective radius Re below or above 0.1, respectively. SRs and FRs are shown to be physically distinct classes of galaxies, a result which cannot simply be the consequence of a biased viewing angle. FRs tend to be relatively low luminosity galaxies. SRs tend to be brighter and more massive galaxies, but are still spread over a wide range of absolute magnitude. 3 slow rotators of our sample, among the most massive ones, are consistent with zero rotation. Remarkably, all other SRs contain a large kpc-scale KDC. All FRs show well aligned photometric and kinemetric axes, and small velocity twists, in contrast with most SRs which exhibit significant misalignments and velocity twists. In a companion paper (Paper X), we also show that FRs and SRs are distinct classes in terms of their orbital distribution. We suggest that gas is a key ingredient in the formation and evolution of FRs, and that the slowest rotators are the extreme evolutionary end point reached deep in gravitational potential wells where dissipationless mergers had a major role in the evolution, and for which most of the baryonic angular momentum was expelled outwards. (abridged)
Review Merridale, Catherine; Myant, Martin; Clark, Ed ...
Europe-Asia Studies,
19/1/1/, Letnik:
49, Številka:
1
Book Review
Recenzirano
Timothy J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996, xvi + 939 pp., £28.50.
Reiner Weichhardt (ed.), Status of Economic ...Reforms in Cooperation Partner Countries in the mid-1990s: Opportunities, Constraints, Security Implications. Brussels: NATO, 1996, 293 pp.
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Robert F. Byrnes, V. O. Kliuchevskii, Historian of Russia. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995, xxi + 301 pp., £31.50.
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