Nuclear Activity and the Dynamics of Elliptical Galaxies

Abstract

This paper looks for any correlation between the internal dynamics of elliptical galaxies and the relatively mild nuclear activity found in many such systems. We show that there is such a relation in the sense that the active ellipticals tend to be significantly less rotationally supported than their inactive cousins. The correlation can partly be related to the galaxies' luminosities: the brightest galaxies tend to be more active and less rotationally supported. However, even at lower luminosities the active and inactive galaxies seem to have systematically different dynamics. This variation suggests that there are significant large-scale structural differences between active and inactive elliptical galaxies, and hence that the existence of both types of system cannot just be the result of random sporadic nuclear activity.

5 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Radial kinematics of brightest cluster galaxies
• Diversity in the stellar velocity dispersion profiles of a large sample of Brightest Cluster Galaxies $z\le 0.3$
• The Surprising Anisotropy of Fast Rotating, Disky Elliptical Galaxies
• Structural properties of disk galaxies. II. Intrinsic shape of bulges
• The Globular Cluster System of NGC 5846 Revisited: Colours, Sizes and X-Ray Counterparts