Understanding the transformation of spirals to lenticulars

Bibliographic Details
Title: Understanding the transformation of spirals to lenticulars
Authors: Johnston, Evelyn J., Aragon-Salamanca, Alfonso, Merrifield, Michael R.
Publication Year: 2014
Collection: Astrophysics
Subject Terms: Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
More Details: By studying the individual star-formation histories of the bulges and discs of lenticular (S0) galaxies, it is possible to build up a sequence of events that leads to the cessation of star formation and the consequent transformation from the progenitor spiral. In order to separate the bulge and disc stellar populations, we spectroscopically decomposed long-slit spectra of Virgo Cluster S0s into bulge and disc components. Analysis of the decomposed spectra shows that the most recent star formation activity in these galaxies occurred within the bulge regions, having been fuelled by residual gas from the disc. These results point towards a scenario where the star formation in the discs of spiral galaxies are quenched, followed by a final episode of star formation in the central regions from the gas that has been funnelled inwards through the disc.
Comment: 2 Pages, 1 figure. Johnston et al. 2014, in IAU Symp. 309, "Galaxies in 3D across the Universe", B. L. Ziegler, F. Combes, H. Dannerbauer, M. Verdugo, Eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press), in press
Document Type: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1017/S1743921314009739
Access URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.2454
Accession Number: edsarx.1410.2454
Database: arXiv
More Details
DOI:10.1017/S1743921314009739