Bibcode
McDermid, Richard M.; Bacon, Roland; Kuntschner, Harald; Emsellem, Eric; Shapiro, Kristen L.; Bureau, Martin; Cappellari, Michele; Davies, Roger L.; Falcón-Barroso, Jesús; Krajnović, Davor; Peletier, Reynier F.; Sarzi, Marc; de Zeeuw, Tim
Bibliographical reference
New Astronomy Reviews, Volume 49, Issue 10-12, p. 521-535.
Advertised on:
1
2006
Journal
Citations
22
Refereed citations
22
Description
We summarise the results and achievements of integral-field spectroscopy
of early-type galaxies, observed as part of a survey using both the
SAURON and OASIS spectrographs. From the perspective of integral-field
spectroscopy, these otherwise smooth and featureless objects show a
wealth of structure, both in their stellar kinematics and populations.
We focus on the stellar content, and examine properties on both
kiloparsec scales with SAURON, and scales of 100’s of parsecs with
OASIS. These complementary studies reveal two types of kinematically
distinct components (KDCs), differing primarily in their intrinsic
sizes. In previous studies, KDCs and their host galaxies have generally
been found to be unremarkable in other aspects. We show that large KDCs,
typical of the well-studied cases, indeed show little or no age
differences with their host galaxy. The KDCs detected with the higher
spatial-resolution of OASIS are intrinsically smaller and include, in
contrast, a significant fraction of young stars. We speculate on the
relationship between KDCs and their host galaxies, and the implications
for young populations in early-type galaxies.