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Satellites of massive galaxies: the infalling pieces of the puzzle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2013

E. Mármol-Queraltó ,
I. Trujillo ,
P. G. Pérez-González ,
G. Barro ,
J. Varela  and
V. Villar
E. Mármol-Queraltó
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, c/Vía Láctea s/n, E-38205, La Laguna, Spain Dpto. de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, E-38205, La Laguna, Spain
I. Trujillo
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, c/Vía Láctea s/n, E-38205, La Laguna, Spain Dpto. de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, E-38205, La Laguna, Spain
P. G. Pérez-González
Affiliation:
Dpto. de Astrofísica, CC. Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, E-28040, Spain
G. Barro
Affiliation:
UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
J. Varela
Affiliation:
Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos, Plaza de San Juan, E-44001, Teruel, Spain
V. Villar
Affiliation:
Dpto. de Astrofísica, CC. Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, E-28040, Spain
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Abstract

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Accretion of minor satellites has been postulated as the most likely mechanism to explain the significant size evolution of massive galaxies over cosmic time. A direct way of probing this scenario is to measure the frequency of satellites around massive galaxies at different redshifts. Here we present our study of satellites around massive galaxies (Mstar ~ 1011 M⊙) up to z ~ 2. We find (Fig. 1) that the fraction of massive galaxies with satellites down to 1:10 mass ratio is ~15% (~30% down to 1:100), not varying with redshift (Mármol-Queraltó et al., (2012)). We also find that our satellites are younger than their central galaxies at low z (Mármol-Queraltó et al., 2013). Then, if minor merging is acting to form massive galaxies, their ourtskirts should be younger than their cores. The challenge to find this age gradient in nearby massive galaxies is opened.

Keywords

galaxies: massive galaxiesgalaxies: evolution galaxies: high-redshift galaxies: formation
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 8 , Symposium S295: The intriguing life of massive galaxies , August 2012 , pp. 181
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2013 

References

Liu, L., Gerke, B. F., et al. 2011, ApJ, 733, 62CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mármol-Queraltó, E., Trujillo, I., Pérez-González, P., Varela, J., & Barro, G. 2012, MNRAS, 422, 2187Google Scholar
Mármol-Queraltó, E., Trujillo, I., Villar, V., Barro, G., & Pérez-González, P. 2013, MNRAS, 429, 792Google Scholar