Stellar Populations of the Most Massive Galaxies

Within the hierarchical CDM framework, gas-poor mergers contribute substantially to the building of the most massive galaxies (Faber et al. 2007). We want to test this scenario by studying the fundamental plane (FP) and the stellar populations of the most massive galaxies. We investigate a well-defined sample of massive early-type galaxies at 0.1<z<0.4, identified from the SDSS database. Out of 42,000 possible targets in the SDSS database, we extracted 23 luminous early-type galaxies with bona fide high velocity dispersions of σ>350 km s^-1. These systems are located either in high or low-density environments and show a variety of small surface-brightness structure. Using archival HST/ACS images and Gemini/GMOS spectroscopy, we will explore the photometric and spectroscopic properties of these galaxies.