Return to search

The dynamics of early-type galaxies as a tool to understand their hot coronae and their IMF

Dynamical models of galaxies are a powerful tool to study and understand several astrophysical problems related to galaxy formation and evolution. This thesis is focussed on a particular type of dynamical models, that are widely used in literature, and are based on the solution of the Jeans equations. By means of a numerical Jeans solver code, developed on purpose and able to build state-of-the-art advanced axisymmetric galaxy models, two of the main currently investigated issues in the field of research of early-type galaxies (ETGs) are addressed. The first topic concerns the hot and X-ray emitting gaseous coronae that surround ETGs. The main goal is to explain why flat and rotating galaxies generally exhibit haloes with lower gas temperatures and luminosities with respect to rounder and velocity dispersion supported systems. The second astrophysical problem addressed concerns instead the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of ETGs. Nowadays, this is a very controversial issue due to a growing number of
works on ETGs, based on different and independent techniques, that show evidences of a systematic variation of the IMF normalization as a function of galaxy velocity
dispersion or mass. These studies are changing the previous opinion that the IMF of ETGs was the same as that of spiral galaxies, and hence universal throughout the whole large family of galaxies.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unibo.it/oai:amsdottorato.cib.unibo.it:6732
Date11 December 2014
CreatorsPosacki, Silvia <1986>
ContributorsCiotti, Luca
PublisherAlma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
Source SetsUniversità di Bologna
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeDoctoral Thesis, PeerReviewed
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Page generated in 0.0017 seconds