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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 1(780), p. L1, 2013

DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/780/1/l1

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An Empirical Connection Between the Ultraviolet Color of Early-Type Galaxies and the Stellar Initial Mass Function

Journal article published in 2013 by Dennis Zaritsky, Armando Gil de Paz ORCID, Alexandre Y. K. Bouquin
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Using new UV magnitudes for a sample of early-type galaxies, ETGs, with published stellar mass-to-light ratios, Upsilon_*, we find a correlation between UV color and Upsilon_* that is tighter than those previously identified between Upsilon_* and either the central stellar velocity dispersion, metallicity, or alpha enhancement. The sense of the correlation is that galaxies with larger Upsilon_* are bluer in the UV. We conjecture that differences in the lower mass end of the stellar initial mass function, IMF, are related to the nature of the extreme horizontal branch populations that are generally responsible for the UV flux in ETGs. If so, then UV color can be used to identify ETGs with particular IMF properties and to estimate Upsilon_*. ; Comment: Submitted for publication in ApJ Letters