Abstract
Early results are reported from the SAURON survey of the kinematics and stellar populations of a representative sample of nearby E, S0 and Sa galaxies. The survey is aimed at determining the intrinsic shape of the galaxies, their orbital structure, the mass-to-light ratio as a function of radius, the age and metallicity of the stellar populations, and the frequency of kinematically decoupled cores and nuclear black holes. The construction of the representative sample is described, and its properties are illustrated. A comparison with long-slit spectroscopic data establishes that the SAURON measurements are comparable to, or better than, the highest-quality determinations. Comparisons are presented for NGC 3384 and 4365, where stellar velocities and velocity dispersions are determined to a precision of 6 km s−1, and the h3 and h4 parameters of the line-of-sight velocity distribution to a precision of better than 0.02. Extraction of accurate gas emission-line intensities, velocities and linewidths from the data cubes is illustrated for NGC 5813. Comparisons with published line strengths for NGC 3384 and 5813 reveal uncertainties of ≲0.1 Å on the measurements of the Hβ, Mg b and Fe5270 indices. Integral-field mapping uniquely connects measurements of the kinematics and stellar populations to the galaxy morphology. The maps presented here illustrate the rich stellar kinematics, gaseous kinematics, and line-strength distributions of early-type galaxies. The results include the discovery of a thin, edge-on, disc in NGC 3623, confirm the axisymmetric shape of the central region of M32, illustrate the LINER nucleus and surrounding counter-rotating star-forming ring in NGC 7742, and suggest a uniform stellar population in the decoupled core galaxy NGC 5813.
Highlights
The physical properties of early-type galaxies correlate with luminosity and environment
We selected a representative sample of objects from this complete list by populating the six ellipticity versus absolute magnitude planes nearly uniformly, using bins of 1 mag in luminosity and 0.2 in ellipticity
In order to correct the line strengths for the broadening caused by the stellar velocity distribution, we convolved a template star spectrum with the observed line-of-sight velocity distribution of the galaxy at each position, and derived the correction necessary to evaluate the indices at zero velocity dispersion
Summary
The physical properties of early-type galaxies correlate with luminosity and environment. It is unclear to what extent the observed properties of these early-type galaxies, and the correlations between them, were acquired at the epoch of galaxy formation or result from subsequent dynamical evolution, possibly driven by a central black hole (Franx, Illingworth & de Zeeuw 1991; de Zeeuw 1996; Faber et al 1997; Merritt 1999; Bak & Statler 2000). Key questions in this area include: what is the distribution of intrinsic shapes, tumbling speeds, and internal orbital structure of early-type galaxies?
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