Issue |
A&A
Volume 526, February 2011
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A114 | |
Number of page(s) | 24 | |
Section | Extragalactic astronomy | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201015344 | |
Published online | 07 January 2011 |
Formation and evolution of dwarf early-type galaxies in the Virgo cluster ⋆,⋆⋆
I. Internal kinematics
1
Departamento de Astrofísica y CC. de la AtmósferaUniversidad Complutense de
Madrid,
28040
Madrid,
Spain
e-mail: etj@astrax.fis.ucm.es; jcmunoz@astrax.fis.ucm.es, jgorgas@fis.ucm.es, gildepaz@gmail.com
2
Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, UMR 6110
CNRS, 38 rue F.
Joliot-Curie, 13388
Marseille,
France
e-mail: alessandro.boselli@oamp.fr
3
Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón,
44001
Teruel,
Spain
e-mail: cenarro@cefca.es
4
Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Postbus 800,
9700 AV
Groningen,
The
Netherlands
e-mail: peletier@astro.rug.nl
5
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA
22903-2475,
USA
Received:
6
July
2010
Accepted:
12
November
2010
We present new medium resolution kinematic data for a sample of 21 dwarf early-type galaxies (dEs) mainly in the Virgo cluster, obtained with the WHT and INT telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Spain). These data are used to study the origin of the dwarf elliptical galaxy population inhabiting clusters. We confirm that dEs are not dark matter dominated galaxies, at least not up to the half-light radius. We also find that the observed galaxies in the outer parts of the cluster are mostly rotationally supported systems with disky morphological shapes. Rotationally supported dEs have rotation curves similar to those of star-forming galaxies of similar luminosity and follow the Tully-Fisher relation. This is expected if dE galaxies are the descendants of low-luminosity star-forming systems that have recently entered the cluster environment and lost their gas due to a ram-pressure stripping event, quenching their star formation activity and transforming into quiescent systems, but conserving their angular momentum.
Key words: galaxies: clusters: individual: Virgo / galaxies: dwarf / galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD / galaxies: kinematics and dynamics / galaxies: evolution / galaxies: formation
Appendices, Full Fig. 6, and Fig. 7 are only available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org.
Full Table 3 is only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/526/A114
© ESO, 2011
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