Detailed Shapes of the Line-of-sight Velocity Distributions in Massive Early-type Galaxies from Nonparametric Spectral Models

Abstract

We present the first systematic study of the detailed shapes of the line-of-sight velocity distributions (LOSVDs) in nine massive early-type galaxies (ETGs) using the novel nonparametric modeling code WINGFIT. High-signal spectral observations with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) at the Very Large Telescope allow us to measure between 40 and 400 individual LOSVDs in each galaxy at a signal-to-noise ratio level better than 100 per spectral bin and to trace the LOSVDs all the way out to the highest stellar velocities. We extensively discuss potential LOSVD distortions due to template mismatch and strategies to avoid them. Our analysis uncovers a plethora of complex, large-scale kinematic structures for the shapes of the LOSVDs. Most notably, in the centers of all ETGs in our sample, we detect faint, broad LOSVD “wings” extending the line-of-sight velocities, v los, well beyond 3σ to v los ∼ ± 1000–1500 km s−1 on both sides of the peak of the LOSVDs. These wings likely originate from point-spread function effects and contain velocity information about the very central unresolved regions of the galaxies. In several galaxies, we detect wings of similar shape also toward the outer parts of the MUSE field of view. We propose that these wings originate from faint halos of loosely bound stars around the ETGs, similar to the cluster-bound stellar envelopes found around many brightest cluster galaxies.