Metallicity gradients: Mass dependency in dwarf elliptical galaxies

Koleva, M.; Prugniel, Ph.; De Rijcke, S.; Zeilinger, W. W.; Michielsen, D.
Referencia bibliográfica

Astronomische Nachrichten, Vol.330, Issue , p.960

Fecha de publicación:
12
2009
Número de autores
5
Número de autores del IAC
1
Número de citas
21
Número de citas referidas
20
Descripción
The formation and evolution of galaxies is imprinted on their stellar population radial gradients. Two recent articles present conflicting results concerning the mass dependence of the metallicity gradients for early-type dwarf galaxies. On one side, Spolaor et al. (2009) show a tight positive correlation between the total metallicity [Z/H] and the mass. On the other side, in a distinct sample, we do not find any trend involving [Fe/H] (Koleva et al. 2009). In order to investigate the origin of the discrepancy, we examine various factors that may affect the determination of the gradients: namely the sky subtraction and the signal-to-noise ratio. We conclude that our detection of gradients are well above the possible analysis biases. Then, we measured the [Mg/Fe] relative abundance profile and found moderate gradients. The derived [Z/H] gradients scatter around -0.4 dex/r_e. The two samples contain the same types of objects and the reason of the disagreement is still not understood. Based on observations made with ESO telescopes at La Silla Paranal observatory under program ID076.B-0196