paper

Halpha imaging observations of early-type galaxies from the ATLAS3D survey

arXiv:1709.06511 · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201731074

Abstract

The traditional knowledge of the mechanisms that caused the formation and evolution of early-type galaxies (ETG) in a hierarchical universe was challenged by the unexpected finding by ATLAS3D that 86% of the ETGs show signs of a fast-rotating disk. This implies a common origin of most spiral galaxies, followed by a quenching phase, while only a minority of the most massive systems are slow rotators and were likely to be the products of merger events. Our aim is to improve our knowledge on the content and distribution of ionized hydrogen and their usage to form stars in a representative sample of ETGs for which the kinematics and detailed morphological classification were known from ATLAS3D. Using narrow-band filters centered on the redshifted Halpha line along with a broad-band (r-Gunn) filter to recover the stellar continuum, we observed or collected existing imaging observations for 147 ETGs (including members of the Virgo cluster) that are representative of the whole ATLAS3D survey. Fifty-five ETGs (37%) were detected in the Halpha line above our detection threshold, (Halpha E.W. <= -1 AA), and 21 harbor a strong source (Halpha E.W. <=-5 AA). The strong Halpha emitters appear associated with low-mass (M 10^10 M_odot) S0 galaxies that contain conspicuous stellar and gaseous discs. These harbor significant star formation at their interior, including their nuclei. The weak Halpha emitters are almost one order of magnitude more massive, contain gas-poor discs and harbor an AGN at their centers. Their emissivity is dominated by [NII] and does not imply star formation. The 92 undetected ETGs are gas-free systems that lack a disc and exhibit passive spectra even in their nuclei. These pieces of evidence reinforce the conclusion that the evolution of ETGs followed the secular channel for the less massive systems and the dry merging channel for the most massive galaxies.

27 pages, 13 figures, Accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics

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