Spatially-resolved properties of early-type group-dominant galaxies with MUSE: gas content, ionisation mechanisms and metallicity gradients

TL;DR

This study uses MUSE data to analyze the spatially-resolved properties of ionised gas in 18 early-type group-dominant galaxies, revealing diverse ionisation mechanisms and metallicity gradients indicative of past gas accretion events.

Contribution

It provides a detailed spatial analysis of gas properties, ionisation sources, and metallicity gradients in early-type galaxies, highlighting the role of past accretion and merger events.

Findings

Central regions influenced by low-luminosity AGN

Extended regions show LINER-like emission with other ionisation mechanisms

Metallicity decreases with radius, with homogeneous extended structures

Abstract

With the goal of a thorough investigation of the ionised gas and its origin in early-type group-dominant galaxies, we present archival MUSE data for 18 galaxies from the Complete Local-Volume Groups Sample (CLoGS). This data allowed us to study the spatially-resolved warm gas properties, including the morphology of the ionised gas, EW(H$\alpha$) and kinematics as well as the gas-phase metallicity (12 + log(O/H)) of these systems. In order to distinguish between different ionisation mechanisms, we used the emission-line ratios [O III]/H$\beta$ and [N II]/H$\alpha$ in the BPT diagrams and EW(H$\alpha$). We find that the ionisation sources in our sample have variable impacts at different radii, central regions are more influenced by low-luminosity AGN, while extended regions of LINER-like emission are ionised by other mechanisms with pAGBs photoionisation likely contributing significantly. We classified our sample into three H$\alpha$+[N II] emission morphology types. We calculate the gas-phase metallicity assuming several methods and ionisation sources. In general, 12 + log(O/H) decreases with radius from the centre for all galaxies, independently of nebular morphology type, indicating a metallicity gradient in the abundance profiles. Interestingly, the more extended filamentary structures and all extranuclear star-forming regions present shallow metallicity gradients. Within the uncertainties these extended structures can be considered chemically homogeneous. We suggest that group-dominant galaxies in our sample likely acquired their cold gas in the past as a consequence of one or more mechanisms, e.g. gas-clouds or satellite mergers/accretion and/or cooling flows that contribute to the growth of the ionised gas structures.