The Stellar Initial Mass Function in Early-Type Galaxies From Absorption Line Spectroscopy. I. Data and Empirical Trends

TL;DR

This study uses absorption line spectroscopy to analyze the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in early-type galaxies, revealing systematic variations correlated with galaxy properties and providing new empirical data for understanding stellar populations.

Contribution

It presents high-quality spectral data for early-type galaxies and demonstrates empirical trends in gravity-sensitive features linked to IMF variations, advancing observational constraints.

Findings

Na I doublet and FeH Wing-Ford band increase with velocity dispersion

Ca II triplet decreases with velocity dispersion

Galaxies with deeper potential wells have more dwarf-enriched IMFs

Abstract

The strength of gravity-sensitive absorption lines in the integrated light of old stellar populations is one of the few direct probes of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) outside of the Milky Way. Owing to the advent of fully depleted CCDs with little or no fringing it has recently become possible to obtain accurate measurements of these features. Here we present spectra covering the wavelength ranges 0.35 - 0.55 micron and 0.72 - 1.03 micron for the bulge of M31 and 34 early-type galaxies from the SAURON sample, obtained with the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer on Keck. The signal-to-noise ratio is >200 per Angstrom out to 1 micron, which is sufficient to measure gravity-sensitive features for individual galaxies and to determine how they depend on other properties of the galaxies. Combining the new data with previously obtained spectra for globular clusters in M31 and the most massive elliptical galaxies in the Virgo cluster we find that the dwarf-sensitive Na I doublet and the FeH Wing-Ford band increase systematically with velocity dispersion, while the giant-sensitive Ca II triplet decreases with dispersion. These trends are consistent with a varying IMF, such that galaxies with deeper potential wells have more dwarf-enriched mass functions. In a companion paper (Conroy & van Dokkum 2012) we use a comprehensive stellar population synthesis model to demonstrate that IMF effects can be separated from age and abundance variations and quantify the IMF variation among early-type galaxies.