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| Paper: |
Abundance Profiles in Elliptical Galaxies |
| Volume: |
147, Abundance Profiles: Diagnostic Tools for Galaxy History |
| Page: |
13 |
| Authors: |
Worthey, Guy |
| Abstract: |
Elliptical galaxies can be strongly individualistic, but most show bluer colors, weaker metallic feature strengths, and approximately flat Balmer line strengths with increasing radius. With the aid of stellar population models one infers that, in the mean, the stars are more metal poor and modestly older in the outskirts. The mean logarithmic metallicity gradient is d{[Fe/H]}/d log R\approx - -0.3 dex per decade, well within the range of published scenarios for the formation of elliptical galaxies. Systematically in larger ellipticals, the nuclei are enhanced by roughly a factor of two in N, Na, and Mg while Ca and Fe follow a scaled-solar mixture. At least in the case of Mg, the light-element enhancement appears roughly the same at all radii. |
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