Oral Presentation

Merger signatures in cluster early-type galaxies

Chang H. Ree (KASI), GEM-DREAM collaboration (Yonsei, KASI, Carnegie, Concepcion)

Massive galaxies form through hierarchical galaxy mergers. Although recent major merger events are rare and mostly dry compared to high-z galaxies, merger accretion is an important channel for stellar mass growth of massive galaxies. In order to investigate the environmental dependence of galaxy mergers, we are conducting a deep imaging survey campaign for the rich galaxy clusters at z < 0.2 to find the direct evidences of recent merger history of massive early-type galaxies. I will report on our first results of the post-merger signatures of cluster early-type galaxies (Sheen et al. 2012) and on the current status of the survey program.