Structure and Kinematics of Star-forming Elliptical Galaxies in SDSS-MaNGA

TL;DR

This study identifies and characterizes a rare population of star-forming elliptical galaxies using spatially resolved spectroscopy, revealing their recent merger history and diverse formation modes, challenging traditional galaxy classification models.

Contribution

The paper uncovers and analyzes a unique class of star-forming elliptical galaxies, providing insights into their formation mechanisms and proposing a new morphology diagram for galaxy evolution.

Findings

Star-forming ellipticals have similar Hα flux to spirals.

They exhibit mixed old and young stellar populations.

Most show signs of recent mergers or interactions.

Abstract

Using 'spatially' resolved spectroscopy, we investigated the characteristics and different modes of formation of stars in elliptical galaxies. We identified an unusual population of 59 star-forming elliptical (SF-E) galaxies in SDSS-MaNGA, our primary sample. To identify these rare star-forming ellipticals, we combined GSWLC-A2 containing outputs of stellar population synthesis models with morphological results from the deep-learning catalog and resolved and integrated properties from the MaNGA Pipe3D value-added catalog. We have also constructed two control samples of star-forming spirals (SF-Sps; 2419 galaxies) and quenched ellipticals (Q-Es; 684 galaxies) to compare with our primary sample of SF-Es. H$\alpha$ emission line flux of SF-Es is similar to spiral galaxies. The D4000 spectral index indicates that SF-Es have a mixture of old and young stellar populations. Mass-weighted stellar age and metallicity for the SF-Es are lower than the Q-Es and 67\% of stellar- and gas- velocity maps of the primary sample show signs of kinematic disturbance. All of these indicate that SF-Es have acquired metal-poor gas through recent mergers or interactions with other galaxies and are forming a new generation of stars. Further, we subdivide our primary sample of SF-Es into four classes based on their bulge to total luminosity ratio $(B/T)$ and spin parameter $\lambda_{re}$. These four classes have their distinct evolutionary history and modes of formation. Based on these results, we suggest that the Hubble diagram does not accurately capture galaxy evolution processes, and we need a revised morphology diagram like the comb morphology diagram to get a complete picture of the galaxy evolution processes.