{
  "id": "1802.02591",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2018-02-07T19:01:23.000Z",
  "updated": "2018-02-07T19:01:23.000Z",
  "title": "Climbing to the top of the galactic mass ladder: evidence for frequent prolate-like rotation among the most massive galaxies",
  "authors": [
    "Davor Krajnovic",
    "Eric Emsellem",
    "Mark den Brok",
    "Raffaella Anna Marino",
    "Kasper Borello Schmidt",
    "Matthias Steinmetz",
    "Peter M. Weilbacher"
  ],
  "comment": "11 pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRAS",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.GA"
  ],
  "abstract": "We present the stellar velocity maps of 25 massive galaxies located in dense environments observed with MUSE. Galaxies are selected to be brighter than M_K=-25.7 magnitude, reside in the core of the Shapley Super Cluster or be the brightest galaxy in clusters richer than the Virgo Cluster. We thus targeted galaxies more massive than 10^12 Msun and larger than 10 kpc (half-light radius). The velocity maps show a large variety of kinematic features: oblate-like regular rotation, kinematically distinct cores and various types of non-regular rotation. The kinematic misalignment angles show that massive galaxies can be divided into two categories: those with small or negligible misalignment, and those with misalignment consistent with being 90 degrees. Galaxies in this latter group, comprising just under half of our galaxies, have prolate-like rotation (rotation around the major axis). Among the brightest cluster galaxies the incidence of prolate-like rotation is 57 per cent, while for a magnitude limited sub-sample of objects within the Shapley Super Cluster (mostly satellites), 35 per cent of galaxies show prolate-like rotation. Placing our galaxies on the mass - size diagram, we show that they all fall on a branch extending almost an order of magnitude in mass and a factor of 5 in size from the massive end early-type galaxies, previously recognised as associated with major dissipation-less mergers. The presence of galaxies with complex kinematics and, particularly, prolate-like rotators suggests, according to current numerical simulations, that the most massive galaxies grow predominantly through dissipation-less equal-mass mergers.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2018-02-07T19:01:23.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "massive galaxies",
      "galactic mass ladder",
      "frequent prolate-like rotation",
      "shapley super cluster",
      "stellar velocity maps"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 11,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}