Luminosity Profiles and Kinematics of Advanced Mergers of Galaxies
Chanda J. Jog
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
Résumé :
It is commonly accepted that a merger of two spiral galaxies
results in a remnant with an elliptical galaxy-like luminosity
profile. Surprisingly, our recent analysis of the 2MASS
archival data for twenty-seven advanced mergers of galaxies
(Chitre & Jog 2002, A & A, 388, 407) has shown that half of
these have luminosity profiles decreasing exponentially with
radius, as in a spiral galaxy. The standard theoretical N-body
models in the literature cannot account for these systems. In
order to better understand the mergers with spiral-like
profiles, we next studied the kinematical data for two of
these, Arp 224 and Arp 214, available from the HYPERCAT
database (Jog & Chitre 2002, A & A Letters, 393, L89). We find
that these are mainly pressure-supported as in an elliptical
galaxy. The origin of this new class of merger remnants with
mixed properties is an open question, and has important
implications for the dynamics of mergers, and the evolution
of galaxies.
