Open AccessMorphological evolution of discs in clusters
Author(s) -
Mastropietro Chiara,
Moore Ben,
Mayer Lucio,
Debattista Victor P.,
Piffaretti Rocco,
Stadel Joachim
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09579.x
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , dwarf galaxy , astronomy , galaxy , virgo cluster , elliptical galaxy , galaxy cluster , dark matter , galaxy formation and evolution , globular cluster
The recent discovery of hidden non‐axisymmetric and disc‐like structures in bright Virgo dwarf elliptical and lenticular galaxies (dE/dSph/dS0) indicates that they may have late‐type progenitors. Using N ‐body simulations we follow the evolution of disc galaxies within a Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cluster simulated with 10 7 particles, where the hierarchical growth and galaxy harassment are modelled self‐consistently. Most of the galaxies undergo significant morphological transformation, even at the outskirts of the cluster, and move through the Hubble sequence from late‐type discs to dwarf spheroidals. None of the discs is completely destroyed, therefore they cannot be the progenitors of ultracompact dwarf (UCD) galaxies. The time evolution of the simulated galaxies is compared with unsharp masked images obtained from Very Large Telescope (VLT) data and the projected kinematics of our models with the latest high‐resolution spectroscopic studies from the Keck and Palomar telescopes.