http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.03304
About half of the S0 galaxies in the nearby Universe show signatures of recent or ongoing star formation. Whether these S0 galaxies were rejuvenated by the accretion of fresh gas is still controversial. We study minor mergers of a gas-rich dwarf galaxy with an S0 galaxy, by means of N-body smoothed-particle hydrodynamics simulations. We find that minor mergers trigger episodes of star formation in the S0 galaxy, lasting for ~10 Gyr. One of the most important fingerprints of the merger is the formation of a gas ring in the S0 galaxy. The ring is reminiscent of the orbit of the satellite galaxy, and its lifetime depends on the merger properties: polar and counter-rotating satellite galaxies induce the formation of long-lived smooth gas rings.
M. Mapelli
Thu, 12 Nov 15
6/61
Comments: 10 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ‘galaxies’. To appear in the Proceedings of the EWASS-2015 Special Session 3 “3D View on Interacting and Post-Interacting Galaxies from Clusters to Voids”
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