The SAMI Galaxy Survey: kinematic alignments of early-type galaxies in A119 and A168

Hyunjin Jeong, Suk Kim, Matt S. Owers, Seo-Joo Joo, Hak Sub Kim, Woong Lee, Youngdae Lee, Jesse van de Sande, Jaehyun Lee, Sukyoung K. Yi, Scott M. Croom, Julia J. Bryant, Soo Chang Rey, Sarah Brough, Sree Oh, Nicholas Scott, Chiara Tonini, Anne M. Medling, Sarah M. Sweet, Joss Bland-HawthornIraklis S. Konstantopoulos, J. S. Lawrence, Samuel N. Richards

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We investigate the kinematic alignments of luminous early-type galaxies (M r ≤ -19.5 mag) in A119 and A168 using the kinematic position angles () from the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral-field spectrograph (SAMI) survey data, motivated by the implication of the galaxy spin alignment in a cosmological context. To increase the size of our sample for statistical significance, we also use the photometric position angles () for galaxies that have not been observed by SAMI, if their ellipticities are higher than 0.15. Our luminous early-type galaxies tend to prefer the specific position angles in both clusters, confirming the results of Kim et al., who recently found the kinematic alignment of early-type galaxies in the Virgo cluster based on the ATLAS3D integral-field spectroscopic data. This alignment signal is more prominent for galaxies in the projected phase-space regions dominated by infalling populations. Furthermore, the alignment angles are closely related to the directions of the filamentary structures around clusters. The results lead us to conclude that many cluster early-type galaxies are likely to be accreted along filaments while maintaining their spin axes, which are predetermined before cluster infall.

Original languageEnglish
Article number60
Pages (from-to)1-9
Number of pages9
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume875
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Apr 2019

Keywords

  • galaxies: clusters: individual (A119 and A168)
  • galaxies: evolution
  • galaxies: formation
  • galaxies: kinematics and dynamics

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