Tracing the evolution of massive galaxies; Alignment of elliptical galaxies in the Virgo cluster

We study the alignment of kinematic position angles (PAkin) of early-type galaxies in the Virgo cluster using Atlas3D data. The PAkin represent the direction of the angular momentum of the galaxies better than the photometric position angles. Therefore, the alignment of their PA$_{kin}$ is a useful tool to trace the momentum direction. The early-type galaxies in the Virgo cluster have been known to be distributed as filamentary structures inside the cluster. We found that their PAkin are aligned to two directions of 20degree and -80degree. This fact is confirmed using the bootstrap test, and that is, the two alignment angles are statistically significant. Besides, these two angles are surprisingly aligned parallel to the filamentary structures inside the cluster. These results suggest that early-type galaxies were formed by major merging in the filament structures and then fall into the Virgo cluster while maintaining their position angles.