Bottom-heavy initial mass function in a nearby compact L★ galaxy

Läsker, R.; van den Bosch, Remco C. E.; van de Ven, Glenn; Ferreras, Ignacio; La Barbera, Francesco; Vazdekis, A.; Falcón-Barroso, J.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, Volume 434, Issue 1, p.L31-L35

Advertised on:
7
2013
Number of authors
7
IAC number of authors
2
Citations
41
Refereed citations
41
Description
We present orbit-based dynamical models and stellar population analysis of Sloan Digital Sky Survey J151741.75-004217.6, a low-redshift (z = 0.116) early-type galaxy (ETG) which, for its moderate luminosity, has an exceptionally high velocity dispersion. We aim to determine the central black hole (BH) mass (M•), the i-band stellar mass-to-light ratio (Υ*, i) and the slope of the initial mass function (IMF). Combining constraints from Hubble Space Telescope imaging and long-slit kinematic data with those from fitting the spectrum with stellar populations models of varying IMFs, we show that this galaxy has a large fraction of low-mass stars, significantly higher than implied even by a Salpeter IMF. We exclude a Chabrier/Kroupa as well as a unimodal (i.e. single-segment) IMF, while a bimodal (low-mass tapered) shape is consistent with the dynamical constraints. Thereby, our study demonstrates that a very bottom-heavy IMF can exist even in an L* ETG. We place an upper limit of 1010.5 M⊙ on M•, which still leaves open the possibility of an extremely massive BH.
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