Superdense massive galaxies in the nearby universe

Ferré-Mateu, A.; Trujillo, I.
Bibliographical reference

Stellar Populations – Planning for the Next Decade, Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, IAU Symposium, Volume 262, p. 331-332

Advertised on:
4
2010
Number of authors
2
IAC number of authors
2
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
At high-z the most superdense massive galaxies are supposed to be the result of gas-rich mergers resulting in compact remnant (Khochfar & Silk (2006); Naab et al. (2007)). After this, dry mergers are expected to be the mechanism that moves these very massive galaxies towards the current stellar mass size relation. Whitin these merging scenarios, a non-negligible fraction (1-10%) of these galaxies is expected to survive since that epoch retaining their compactness and presenting old stellar populations in the past universe.Using the NYU Value-Added Galaxy Catalog (DR6), we find only a tiny fraction of galaxies (~0.03%) with re ≤ 1.5 kpc and M* ≥ 8x1010M&sun; in the local Universe (z~0.2). Surprisingly, they are relatively young (~2Gyr) and metal rich ([Z/H]~0.2) These results have been published in Trujillo et al. (2009)