Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 416, Issue 3, Pages 1983-1995Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.19176.x
Keywords
galaxies: clusters: individual: Virgo; galaxies: dwarf; galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: spiral; galaxies: stellar content
Categories
Funding
- National Science and Engineering Council of Canada
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Science Foundation
- US Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- Higher Education Funding Council for England
- American Museum of Natural History
- Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
- University of Basel
- Cambridge University
- Case Western Reserve University
- University of Chicago
- Drexel University
- Fermilab
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Japan Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Korean Scientist Group
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max-Planck-Institute
- New Mexico State University
- Ohio State University
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- United States Naval Observatory
- University of Washington
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We use a combination of deep optical (gri) and near-infrared (H) photometry to study the radially resolved colours of a broad sample of 283 Virgo cluster galaxies. For most galaxy types, we find that the median g - H colour gradient is either flat (gas-poor giants and gas-rich dwarfs) or negative (i.e. colours become bluer with increasing radius; gas-poor dwarfs, spirals and gas-poor peculiars). Later-type galaxies typically exhibit more negative gradients than early types. Given the lack of a correlation between the central colours and axial ratios of Virgo spiral galaxies, we argue that dust likely plays a small role, if at all, in setting those colour gradients. We search for possible correlations between galaxy colour and photometric structure or environment and find that the Virgo galaxy colours become redder with increasing concentration, luminosity and surface brightness, while no dependence on the clustercentric radius or local galaxy density is detected (over a range of similar to 2 Mpc and similar to 3-16 Mpc(-2), respectively). The colours of gas-rich Virgo galaxies correlate with their neutral gas deficiencies, such that these galaxies become redder with higher deficiencies, although part of this correlation is likely driven by a latent morphology-gas deficiency trend. Comparisons with stellar population models suggest that these colour gradients arise principally from variations in stellar metallicity within these galaxies, while age variations only make a significant contribution to the colour gradients of Virgo irregulars. A detailed stellar population analysis based on this material is presented in Roediger et al. (Paper II of this series).
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