Superdense Massive Galaxies in the Nearby Universe

Ferré-Mateu, A.; Trujillo, I.
Bibliographical reference

Galaxies in Isolation: Exploring Nature Versus Nurture, proceedings of a conference held 12 to 15 May 2009 in Granada, Spain. Edited by Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro, Ascencíon del Olmo, and Jack Sulentic. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2010., p.254

Advertised on:
10
2010
Number of authors
2
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
At high-z the most superdense massive galaxies are supposed to be the result of gas-rich mergers resulting in compact remnant. After this, dry mergers are expected to be the mechanism that moves these very massive galaxies towards the current stellar mass size relation. Within these merging scenarios, a non-negligible fraction (1-10%) of these galaxies is expected to survive since that epoch retaining their compactness and presenting old stellar populations in the past universe. Using the NYU Value-Added Galaxy Catalog (DR6), we find only a tiny fraction of galaxies (˜0.03% ) with re ≤ 1.5 kpc and M* ≥ 8×1010 Msun in the local Universe (z˜0.2) Surprisingly, they are relatively young ˜2Gyr) and metal rich ([Z/H˜0.2). These results have been published in.