The Fundamental Plane of Galaxy Group Mergers

TL;DR

This study uses extensive collisionless simulations to demonstrate that galaxy group mergers can produce elliptical galaxies that align with the fundamental plane, offering an alternative formation pathway without requiring dissipational processes.

Contribution

It shows that multiple dry mergers in galaxy groups can reproduce elliptical galaxy properties and the fundamental plane, challenging the necessity of dissipational starburst events.

Findings

Elliptical remnants lie on a tilted fundamental plane.

Galaxy group mergers can produce realistic elliptical morphologies.

Dissipational components are not essential for fundamental plane alignment.

Abstract

We present a series of hundreds of collisionless simulations of galaxy group mergers. These simulations are designed to test whether the properties of elliptical galaxies - including the key fundamental plane scaling relation, morphology and kinematics - can be simultaneously reproduced by dry multiple mergers in galaxy groups. Preliminary results indicate that galaxy group mergers can produce elliptical remnants lying on a tilted fundamental plane, even without a central dissipational component from a starburst. This suggests that multiple mergers in groups are an alternate avenue for the formation of elliptical galaxies which could well dominate for luminous ellipticals.