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J/MNRAS/330/547     Local galaxy ages and metallicities     (Terlevich+, 2002)
A catalogue and analysis of local galaxy ages and metallicities.
    Terlevich A.I., Forbes D.A.
   <Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 330, 547 (2002)>
   =2002MNRAS.330..547T
ADC_Keywords: Galaxy catalogs ; Abundances, [Fe/H] ; Rotational velocities ;
              Velocity dispersion
Keywords: galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD - galaxies: evolution -
          galaxies: photometry

Abstract:
    We have assembled a catalogue of relative ages, metallicities and
    abundance ratios for about 150 local galaxies in field, group and
    cluster environments. The galaxies span morphological types from cD
    and ellipticals, to late-type spirals. Ages and metallicities were
    estimated from high-quality published spectral line indices using
    Worthey & Ottaviani (1997, Cat. J/ApJS/111/377) single stellar
    population evolutionary models. The identification of galaxy age as a
    fourth parameter in the fundamental plane (Forbes, Ponman & Brown,
    1998ApJ...508L..43F) is confirmed by our larger sample of ages. We
    investigate trends between age and metallicity, and with other
    physical parameters of the galaxies, such as ellipticity, luminosity
    and kinematic anisotropy. We demonstrate the existence of a galaxy
    age-metallicity relation similar to that seen for local galactic disc
    stars, whereby young galaxies have high metallicity, while old
    galaxies span a large range in metallicities. We also investigate the
    influence of environment and morphology on the galaxy age and
    metallicity, especially the predictions made by semi-analytic
    hierarchical clustering models (HCM). We confirm that non-cluster
    ellipticals are indeed younger on average than cluster ellipticals as
    predicted by the HCM models. However we also find a trend for the more
    luminous galaxies to have a higher [Mg/Fe] ratio than the lower
    luminosity galaxies, which is opposite to the expectation from HCM
    models.

File Summary:

       FileName      Lrecl  Records   Explanations

ReadMe            80        .   This file
table1.dat        40       57   Galaxies excluded from the catalogue
table2.dat        36      182   Galaxy age, metallicity and abundance estimates
table4.dat        59      182   Galaxy properties


See also:
   J/ApJS/111/377 : Hγ + Hδ absorption features (Worthey+ 1997)
   J/A+A/309/749  : Fundamental plane of early type galaxies (Prugniel+ 1996)


Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat

   Bytes Format Units   Label     Explanations

   1-  9  A9    ---     Sample    Sample designation (1)
  11- 19  A9    ---     Cluster   Cluster name
  21- 40  A20   ---     Reason    Reason (2)

Note (1): Sample designations as follows:
     Carollo   = Carollo et al., 1993MNRAS.265..553C
     Davies    = Davies et al., 1993MNRAS.262..650D
     Fisher95  = Fisher et al., 1995ApJ...448..119F
     Fisher96  = Fisher et al., 1996, Cat. J/ApJ/459/110
     Longhetti = 1998, Cat. J/A+AS/130/251
     Mehlert   = Mehlert et al., 1997, in Mazure A., Casoli F., Durret F.,
                 Gerbal D., eds, Coma Berenices: A New Vision of an Old
                 Cluster. Word Scientific, , p. 107
     Vazdekis  = Vazdekis & Arimoto, 1999ApJ...525..144V
Note (2): We have excluded galaxies owing to suspected Hβ emission
    filling, too large a quoted error on the Hβ index, or a lack of
    either Hβ or Fe index measurements. See text for details.


Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat

   Bytes Format Units   Label    Explanations

   1- 11  A11   ---     Galaxy   Galaxy name
      13  A1    ---     l_Age    Limit flag on Age
  14- 17  F4.1  Gyr     Age      ? Age
      20  A1    ---    l_[Fe/H]  Limit flag on [Fe/H]
  21- 25  F5.2  Sun     [Fe/H]   ? Metallicity
  27- 31  F5.2  Sun     [Mg/Fe]  ? [Mg/Fe] abundance
  33- 34  I2    ---     r_Age    [1/12] Sources of age, metallicity and
                                         abundance ratios (1)
      36  I1    ---     q_Age    [1/3] Quality index (2)

Note (1): Sources of age, metallicity and abundance ratios are as follows:
      1 = Carollo et al., 1993MNRAS.265..553C
      2 = Davies et al., 1993MNRAS.262..650D
      3 = Fisher et al., 1996, Cat. J/ApJ/459/110
      4 = Fisher et al., 1995ApJ...448..119F
      5 = Gonzalez, 1993, PhD thesis
      6 = Goudfrooij et al., 1999Ap&SS.269..109G
      7 = Halliday, 1998, PhD thesis
      8 = Kuntschner, 1998MNRAS.295L..29K
      9 = Longhetti et al., 1998, Cat. J/A+AS/130/251
     10 = Mehlert et al., 1997, in Mazure A., Casoli F., Durret F.,
          Gerbal D., eds, Coma Berenices: A New Vision of an Old Cluster.
          Word Scientific, , p. 107
     11 = Vazdekis & Arimoto, 1999ApJ...525..144V
     12 = mean of several
Note (2): Quality index as follows:
      1 = Ages with errors <±20% and metallicity errors <±0.1dex
      2 = errors >±20% and >±0.1dex
      3 = highly uncertain values (not used in analysis)


Table 3: Other age estimates using different methods from the one utilized
         for this paper.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Galaxy     Our age  Other age    Source
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 NGC 1052              0.9       van Gorkom et al., 1986AJ.....91..791V
 NGC 1700     2.3      2.5       Brown et al., 2000MNRAS.317..406B
 NGC 2865    <1.5      1.2       Forbes et al., 1998ApJ...508L..43F
 NGC 3156              0.9       Forbes et al., 1998ApJ...508L..43F
 NGC 3610              1.5-6.5   Whitmore et al., 1997AJ....114.1797W
 NGC 3656             ∼1.        Balcells, 1997ApJ...486L..87B
 NGC 3921              0.8       Forbes et al., 1998ApJ...508L..43F
 NGC 5322              1-3       Silva & Bothun, 1998AJ....116.2793S
 NGC 6776     3.2      2-3       Sansom et al., 1988MNRAS.234..247S
 NGC 7252              0.7       Forbes et al., 1998ApJ...508L..43F
 NGC 7585             ∼1.        A stars
 ESO341-IG04           0.8       Bergvall et al., 1989A&A...222...49B

Byte-by-byte Description of file: table4.dat

   Bytes Format Units   Label     Explanations

   1- 11  A11   ---     Galaxy    Galaxy name
  13- 18  A6    ---     MType     Morphological type (From NED)
  20- 25  A6    ---     Environ   Environment (1)
  27- 32  F6.2  Mpc     Dist      Distance, assumes H0=75
  34- 39  F6.2  mag     BMAG      ? Absolute B magnitude
  41- 43  I3    km/s    Vrot      ? Rotational velocity (2)
  45- 47  I3    km/s    sigma     ? Velocity dispersion (2)
  49- 52  F4.2  ---     Ellip     ? Ellipticity (2) (3)
  54- 58  F5.2  ---     ResFP     ? Residual from the Fundamental Plane (2)

Note (1): The environment is given either as
          Field, Group or the name of the cluster
Note (2): Magnitude, rotation velocity, velocity dispersion, ellipticity
    and R come from Prugniel & Simien, 1996, Cat. J/A+A/309/749,
    Hypercat (Prugniel & Golev, 1999, in Carral P., Cepa J., eds, ASP
    Conf. Ser. Vol. 163, Star Formation in Early Type Galaxies. Astron.
    Soc. Pac., p. 296) or RC3, de Vaucouleurs et al., Cat. VII/155.
Note (3): Ellipticities for S0 galaxies are not listed



History:
    From electronic version of the journal
(End)                         James Marcout, Patricia Bauer [CDS]    28-Mar-2002