THE PROPERTIES OF THE STELLAR NUCLEI WITH THE HOST GALAXY MORPHOLOGY IN THE ACSVCS

Abstract

We have revisited the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey (ACSVCS), a Hubble Space Telescope program to obtain ACS/WFC g and z bands imaging for a sample of 100 early-type galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. In this study, we examine 51 nucleated early-type galaxies in the ACSVCS in order to look into the relationship between the photometric and structural properties of stellar nuclei and their host galaxies. We morphologically dissect galaxies into five classes. We note that (1) the stellar nuclei of dwarf early-type galaxies (dS0, dE, and dE,N) are generally fainter and bluer with g > 18.95 and (g-z) < 1.40 compared to some brighter and redder counterparts of the ellipticals (E) and lenticular galaxies (S0), (2) the g-band half-light radii of stellar nuclei of all dwarf early-type galaxies (dS0, dE, and dE,N) are smaller than 20 pc and their average is about 4 pc, and (3) the colors of red stellar nuclei with (g - z) > 1.40 in bright ellipticals and lenticular galaxies are bluer than their host galaxies colors. We also show that most of the unusually "red" stellar nuclei with (g-z) > 1.54 in the ACSVCS are the central parts of bright ellipticals and lenticular galaxies. Furthermore, we present multi photometric band color - color plots that can be used to break the age-metallicity degeneracy particularly by inclusion of the thermally pulsing-asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) phases of stellar evolution in the stellar population models.