SDSS-IV MaNGA: variation of the stellar initial mass function in spiral and early-type galaxies

Journal article

We perform Jeans anisotropic modeling (JAM) on elliptical and spiral galaxies from the MaNGA DR13 sample. By comparing the stellar mass-to-light ratios estimated from stellar population synthesis and from JAM, we find a systematic variation of the initial mass function (IMF) similar to that in the earlier ${\mathrm{ATLAS}}^{3{\rm{D}}}$ results. Early-type galaxies (elliptical and lenticular) with lower velocity dispersions within one effective radius are consistent with a Chabrier-like IMF, while galaxies with higher velocity dispersions are consistent with a more bottom-heavy IMF such as the Salpeter IMF. Spiral galaxies have similar systematic IMF variations, but with slightly different slopes and larger scatters, due to the uncertainties caused by the higher gas fractions and extinctions for these galaxies. Furthermore, we examine the effects of stellar mass-to-light ratio gradients on our JAM modeling, and we find that the trends become stronger after considering the gradients.

Authors: Li, H; Ge, J; Mao, S; Cappellari, M; Long, R

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Journal: Astrophysical Journal
• Volume: 838
• Issue: 2
• Publication date: 2017-03-29
• Acceptance date: 2017-03-15
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa662a
• EISSN: 1538-4357
• ISSN: 0004-637X
• Keywords: galaxies: structure; galaxies: formation; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: kinematics and dynamics; dark matter