Blue Ellipticals - the paper

[zookeeperKevin]

Hi blue elliptical fans,

In this thread, I'll keep you upt do date on my paper on "blue ellipticals" that's scheduled for the first round of Galaxy Zoo papers. It's actually already in pretty good shape with a draft floating around with various team members. I am trying very hard to stay within the 4-page limit for a Letter rather than a Paper. Letters are a version of papers that are supposed to fulfil two criteria: 1. They should have an immediate high impact on the field and 2. They should be concise (i.e. only a few pages). What you get in return is faster peer-review (though also often tougher!) and generally higher impact (i.e. people are more likely to read it).

Please do drop any questions about the paper and peer-review in general here.
This is *your* paper too after all!

[zookeeperKevin]

Further work on the draft plus comments from others is making the draft bigger and bigger. We may have to abandon the idea of presenting everything in a Letter and may have to go for a full Paper.

[ElisabethB]

so letter/paper ? what's it going to be ? 

[zookeeperKevin]

A paper. The draft is far too long already.

[EricFDiaz]

Well, a paper it is then.

[dlocksmith]

Does anyone know where the verbose version of this thread is? 

[zookeeperKevin]

Go ahead and ask any question, I'll be verbose then!

At the moment I'm waiting for some final information from the simulations we are comparing to. After that, I will finish my re-write and incorporate all remaining comments that I got at the meeting in Portsmouth. Then I will circulate the next draft with the team for further comments. Hopefully by then the paper is in good shape.

[dlocksmith]

I think that  the world would like some sneak preview details 
At present we know the paper is about blue ellipticals.
We know they are blue and that they are elliptical 
We have looked through the thread and seen lots of examples.

Can you give us a couple of interesting facts about them?
The sort of thing we can drop into a conversation when we are trying to impress   

[fluffyporcupine]

I think that  the world would like some sneak preview details 
At present we know the paper is about blue ellipticals.
We know they are blue and that they are elliptical 
We have looked through the thread and seen lots of examples.

Can you give us a couple of interesting facts about them?
The sort of thing we can drop into a conversation when we are trying to impress   

LOL i love the way you put that, especially

We know they are blue and that they are elliptical 

 

[zookeeperKevin]

Alright, one of the most interesting questions about blue ellipticals is whether the star formation in them is basically confined to the center of the galaxy, or whether it is extended. When I measure the star formation rate using indicators in the SDSS spectra, I can only probe the "central" star formation rate, as the spectra only cover the center of the galaxy. I've used two other star formation rate indicators (ultraviolet and infrared light) for the *whole* galaxy and found a much higher star formation rate. This means that the star formation in blue ellipticals must be extended across much of the galaxy.

[dlocksmith]

That is very cool 
What do we look for next...
Do blue ellipticals have bars or rings?
Are there any involved in mergers?

[zookeeperKevin]

That is very cool 
What do we look for next...
Do blue ellipticals have bars or rings?
Are there any involved in mergers?

They don't seem to have either bars or rings as far as I can tell.

As to whether they are recent merger products, now that's a very good question. I suspect so, yes. However, SDSS images are probably not good enough to really pick up the evidence for recent mergers. I've been trying to get time to do much deeper images, but just got turned down.

[Alice]

That is very cool 
What do we look for next...
Do blue ellipticals have bars or rings?
Are there any involved in mergers?

They don't seem to have either bars or rings as far as I can tell.

As to whether they are recent merger products, now that's a very good question. I suspect so, yes. However, SDSS images are probably not good enough to really pick up the evidence for recent mergers. I've been trying to get time to do much deeper images, but just got turned down.

  Sorry to read that last bit. Is that likely to change for the better after the publication of, say, your current blue ellips paper or some Galaxy Zoo papers?

[EricFDiaz]

That is very cool 
What do we look for next...
Do blue ellipticals have bars or rings?
Are there any involved in mergers?

They don't seem to have either bars or rings as far as I can tell.

As to whether they are recent merger products, now that's a very good question. I suspect so, yes. However, SDSS images are probably not good enough to really pick up the evidence for recent mergers. I've been trying to get time to do much deeper images, but just got turned down.

Sorry to hear about you getting turned down for telescope time. Bummer!
Kevin, I was wondering, has any rotation been detected in the blue ellipticals? I ask this because I believe they are the products of galactic mergers, and I was wondering if they retained any of the angular momentum that is entailed in at least some merging processes. Eric

[zookeeperKevin]

Hi Eric,

Some ellipticals do indeed rotate, others don't. Their dynamics can be pretty complex and messy. Some of them even have counter-rotating cores, which is a definite sign of a past merger between similar-size galaxies.