Chemical clocks for early-type galaxies
| dc.creator | Carretero, C. | |
| dc.creator | Vazdekis, A. | |
| dc.creator | Beckman, J. E. | |
| dc.creator | ; | |
| dc.date | 2007-03-08 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T07:50:44Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T07:50:44Z | |
| dc.description | We present a detailed stellar population analysis of 27 massive elliptical galaxies within 4 very rich clusters at redshift z~0.2. We obtained accurate estimates of the mean luminosity-weighted ages and relative abundances of CN, Mg and Fe as functions of the galaxy velocity dispersion, sigma. Our results are compatible with a scenario in which the stellar populations of massive elliptical galaxies, independently of their environment and mass, had formation timescales shorter than ~1 Gyr. This result implies that massive elliptical galaxies have evolved passively since, at least, as long ago as z~2. For a given galaxy mass the duration of star formation is shorter in those galaxies belonging to more dense environments. Finally, we show that the abundance ratios [CN/Fe] and [Mg/Fe] are the key "chemical clocks" to infer the star formation history timescales in ellipticals. In particular, [Mg/Fe] provides an upper limit for those formation timescales, while [CN/Fe] apperars to be the most suitable parameter to resolve them in elliptical galaxies with sigma<300 km/s. | |
| dc.description | Proceedings of the IAU Symposium 241 "Stellar Populations as Building Blocks of Galaxies", La Palma, 10-16 december 2006 | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0703187 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0703187 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/125265 | |
| dc.subject | Astrophysics | |
| dc.title | Chemical clocks for early-type galaxies | |
| dc.type | text |