Title:
Morphology & Kinematics of the Ionized gas in Early-type
Galaxies
Authors:
Jesus Falcon-Barroso and the SAURON Team
Abstract:
In this talk I will present results of the
emission-line fluxes and kinematics of the representative elliptical and
lenticular galaxies in the SAURON survey. I will show a new emission
line-fitting tool to decouple the stellar from the gaseous contribution
on SAURON spectra, that has been succesfully applied to the sample of 48
galaxies. Our results show that, in general, the ionized gas maps display
regular motions with smooth variations in angular momentum. In the majority
of the galaxies, the gas kinematics is decoupled from the stellar
counterpart, and in less than half we find signatures of recent acquisition
of gaseous material. The presence of dust features is always accompained by
gas emission while the converse is not always true. Finally, a considerable
range of values for the [OIII]/Hbeta ratio is found both across the whole
sample and within single galaxies, suggesting different mechanisms as
triggers for the ionization of the gas.