Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 712, Issue 1, Pages 318-349Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/712/1/318
Keywords
galaxies: evolution; galaxies: formation; galaxies: kinematics and dynamics; galaxies: interactions; galaxies: peculiar
Categories
Funding
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- National Research Council Associateship Award at the Naval Research Laboratory
- Office of Naval Research
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- National Science Foundation
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Mergers in the local universe present a unique opportunity for studying the transformations of galaxies in detail. Presented here are recent results, based on multi-wavelength, high-resolution imaging and medium resolution spectroscopy, which demonstrate how star formation and the presence of red supergiants and/or asymptotic giant branch stars have led to a serious underestimation of the dynamical masses of infrared-bright galaxies. The dominance of a nuclear disk of young stars in the near-infrared bands, where dust obscuration does not block their signatures, can severely bias the global properties measured in a galaxy, including mass. This explains why past studies of gas-rich luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) and ultraluminous infrared galaxies, which have measured dynamical masses using the 1.62 or 2.29 mu m CO band heads, have found that these galaxies are forming m < m* ellipticals. On the other hand, precisely because of dust obscuration, I-band photometry and velocity dispersions obtained with the calcium II triplet at 0.85 mu m reflect the global properties of the mergers and suggest that all types of merger remnants, including infrared-bright ones, will form m > m* ellipticals. Moreover, merger remnants, including LIRGs, are placed on the I-band fundamental plane for the first time and appear to be virtually indistinguishable from elliptical galaxies.
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