Early type galaxies with tidal debris and their scaling relations in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G)

TL;DR

This study identifies tidal debris in early type galaxies from the S4G survey, analyzing their structural properties and scaling relations, and finds that such features do not significantly alter the galaxies' placement in fundamental scaling relations.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of tidal debris in early type galaxies within the S4G survey, linking tidal features to galaxy structural parameters and scaling relations.

Findings

Galaxies with tidal debris contribute 3-10% of total luminosity.

These galaxies occupy similar regions in the Fundamental Plane as non-interacting galaxies.

Tidal debris indicates recent minor or major mergers with minimal impact on structural properties.

Abstract

Tidal debris around galaxies can yield important clues on their evolution. We have identified tidal debris in 11 early type galaxies (T \leq 0) from a sample of 65 early types drawn from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G). The tidal debris includes features such as shells, ripples and tidal tails. A variety of techniques, including two-dimensional decomposition of galactic structures, was used to quantify the residual tidal features. The tidal debris contributes ~3 - 10% to the total 3.6 {\mu}m luminosity of the host galaxy. Structural parameters of the galaxies were estimated using two-dimensional profile fitting. We investigate the locations of galaxies with tidal debris in the Fundamental Plane and Kormendy relation. We find that galaxies with tidal debris lie within the scatter of early type galaxies without tidal features. Assuming that the tidal debris is indicative of recent gravitational interaction or merger, this suggests that these galaxies have either undergone minor merging events so that the overall structural properties of the galaxies are not significantly altered, or they have undergone a major merging events but already have experienced sufficient relaxation and phase-mixing so that their structural properties become similar to those of the non-interacting early type galaxies.