Merging Features and Optical-NIR Color Gradient of Early-type Galaxies

It has been suggested that merging plays an important role in the formation and the evolution of early-type galaxies (ETGs). Optical-NIR color gradients of ETGs in high density environments are found to be less steep than those of ETGs in low density environments, hinting frequent merger activities in ETGs in high density environments. In order to examine if the flat color gradients are the result of dry mergers, we studied the relations between merging features, color gradient, and environments of 281 low redshift ETGs selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe82. The sample contains 222 relaxed ETGs, 38 ETGs with tidal features, 10 galaxies with dust features and 11 galaxies with tidal and dust features, and Near Infrared (NIR) images are taken from UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Large Area Survey (LAS). We find that r-K color gradients of field sample galaxies are steeper than those of sample ETGs within cluster environments. For the field sample galaxies, a relatively large number of galaxies with peculiar features contribute to the steeper color gradients, while the absence of these peculiar early-type galaxies make color gradients of the cluster sample galaxies intact. In high density environment, ETGs are already evolved and relaxed, resulting flat color gradients. However, in low density environments, a majority of ETGs undergone merging recently which makes the color gradients steep.