Published in

Cambridge University Press (CUP), Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, S245(3), p. 67-70, 2007

DOI: 10.1017/s1743921308017304

American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 2(664), p. 640-649, 2007

DOI: 10.1086/519441

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A connection between bulge properties and the bimodality of galaxies

Journal article published in 2007 by Niv Drory, David B. Fisher ORCID
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

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Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

AbstractThe global colors and structure of galaxies have recently been shown to follow bimodal distributions. Galaxies separate into a “red sequence”, populated prototypically by early-type galaxies, and a “blue cloud”, whose typical objects are late-type disk galaxies. Intermediate-type (Sa-Sbc) galaxies populate both regions. It has been suggested that this bimodality reflects the two-component nature of disk-bulge galaxies. However, it has now been established that there are two types of bulges: “classical bulges” that are dynamically hot systems resembling (little) ellipticals, and “pseudobulges”, dynamically cold, flattened, disk-like structures that could not have formed via violent relaxation. Alas, given the different formation mechanisms of these bulges, the question is whether at types Sa-Sbc, where both bulge types are found, the red-blue dichotomy separates galaxies at some value of disk-to-bulge ratio,B/T, or, whether it separates galaxies of different bulge type, irrespective of theirB/T. In this paper, we identify classical bulges and pseudobulges morphologically with HST images in a sample of nearby galaxies. Detailed surface photometry reveals that: (1) The red – blue dichotomy is a function of bulge type: at the sameB/T, pseudobulges are in globally blue galaxies and classical bulges are in globally red galaxies. (2) Bulge type also predicts where the galaxy lies in other (bimodal) global structural parameters: global Sérsic index and central surface brightness. Hence, the red – blue dichotomy is not due to decreasing bulge prominence alone, and the bulge type of a galaxy carries significance for the galaxy's evolutionary history.

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