Bibcode
DOI
Arnaboldi, Magda; Doherty, Michelle; Gerhard, Ortwin; Ciardullo, Robin; Aguerri, J. Alfonso L.; Feldmeier, John J.; Freeman, Kenneth C.; Jacoby, George H.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 674, Issue 1, pp. L17-L20.
Advertised on:
2
2008
Journal
Citations
18
Refereed citations
12
Description
The line-of-sight velocities and [O III] 5007 Å expansion
velocities are measured for 11 planetary nebulae (PNs) in the Virgo
Cluster core, at 15 Mpc distance, with the FLAMES spectrograph on the
ESO VLT. These PNs are located about halfway between the two giant
elliptical galaxies M87 and M86. From the [O III] 5007 Å line
profile widths, the average half-width at half-maximum expansion
velocity for this sample of 11 PNs is v¯HWHM=16.5 km
s-1 (rms=2.6 km s-1). We use the PN subsample
bound to M87 to remove the distance uncertainties and the resulting [O
III] 5007 Å luminosities to derive the central star masses. We
find these masses to be at least 0.6 Msolar and obtain PN
observable lifetimes tPN<2000 yr, which imply that the
bright PNs detected in the Virgo Cluster core are compact, high-density
nebulae. We finally discuss several scenarios for explaining the high
central star masses in these bright M87 halo PNs.
Related projects
Galaxy Evolution in Clusters of Galaxies
Galaxies in the universe can be located in different environments, some of them are isolated or in low density regions and they are usually called field galaxies. The others can be located in galaxy associations, going from loose groups to clusters or even superclusters of galaxies. One of the foremost challenges of the modern Astrophysics is to
Jairo
Méndez Abreu