Abstract
AbstractI review the insights emerging from recent large kinematic surveys of galaxies at low redshift, with particular reference to the SAMI, CALIFA and MaNGA surveys. These new observations provide a more comprehensive picture of the angular momentum properties of galaxies over wide ranges in mass, morphology and environment in the present-day universe. I focus on the distribution of angular momentum within galaxies of various types and the relationship between mass, morphology and specific angular momentum. I discuss the implications of the new results for models of galaxy assembly.
Highlights
Keywords. galaxies: kinematics and dynamics, galaxies: structure, galaxies: evolution galaxies: formation, galaxies: stellar content. This brief review focusses on recent integral field spectroscopy surveys of the stellar kinematics in large samples of galaxies at low redshifts
It does not cover radio HI surveys of the neutral gas in low-redshift galaxies nor does it extend to surveys at high redshifts
What local surveys of stellar kinematics can tell us about angular momentum in galaxies is its dependence on mass, morphology and other properties and its dependence on environment; such dependencies can provide indirect evidence for the origin and evolution of angular momentum
Summary
This brief review focusses on recent integral field spectroscopy surveys of the stellar kinematics in large samples of galaxies at low redshifts. The lack of radial coverage is a serious problem for latetype disk galaxies having exponential mass profiles (i.e. having Sersic index n ≈ 1), for which M/Mtot = 0.5,0.8 at R/Re ≈ 1.0,1.8 and j/jtot = 0.5,0.8 at R/Re ≈ 1.0,2.2 It is a much worse problem for early-type spheroidal galaxies with deVaucouleurs profiles (n ≈ 4), for which M/Mtot = 0.5,0.8 at R/Re ≈ 1.0,3.2 and j/jtot = 0.5,0.8 at R/Re ≈ 4.4,>9 (see Figure 1a). This problem is compounded by the necessary instrumental trade-off between radial coverage (field of view) and spatial resolution (spaxel scale) of integral field units (IFUs) due to constraints imposed by the limited available detector area.
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