The merger-driven evolution of massive early-type galaxies

Abstract

The evolution of the structural and kinematic properties of early-type galaxies (ETGs), their scaling relations, as well as their stellar metallicity and age contain precious information on the assembly history of these systems. We present results on the evolution of the stellar mass-velocity dispersion relation of ETGs, focusing in particular on the effects of some selection criteria used to define ETGs. We also try to shed light on the role that in-situ and ex-situ stellar populations have in massive ETGs, providing a possible explanation of the observed metallicity distributions.