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Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the wavelength-dependent sizes and profiles of galaxies revealed by MegaMorph

Journal article published in 2014 by Benedetta Vulcani ORCID, Steven P. Bamford, B. Haeussler, Boris Häuß Ler, Boris Häußler, Marina Vika ORCID, Alex Rojas, Nicola K. Agius, Ivan Baldry, Amanda E. Bauer, Michael J. I. Brown ORCID, Simon Driver ORCID, Alister W. Graham ORCID, Lee S. Kelvin, Jochen Liske ORCID and other authors.
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

We investigate the relationship between colour and structure within galaxies using a large, volume-limited sample of bright, low-redshift galaxies with optical to near-infrared imaging from the GAMA survey. We fit single-component, wavelength-dependent, elliptical Sersic models to all passbands simultaneously, using software developed by the MegaMorph project. Dividing our sample by Sersic index and colour, the recovered wavelength variations in effective radius (R_e) and Sersic index (n) reveal the internal structure, and hence formation history, of different types of galaxies. All these trends depend on n; some have an additional dependence on galaxy colour. Late-type galaxies (n_r 2.5), even though they maintain constant n with wavelength, revealing that ellipticals are a superimposition of different stellar populations associated with multiple collapse and merging events. Processes leading to structures with larger R_e must be associated with lower metallicity or younger stellar populations. This appears to rule out the formation of young cores through dissipative gas accretion as an important mechanism in the recent lives of luminous elliptical galaxies. ; Comment: 24 pages, 21 figures, published in MNRAS (v2 fixes author names; v3 matches published version)