Structural evolution of massive early-type galaxies

We use a large sample of cosmological re-simulations of individual massive galaxies to investigate the origin of the strong increase in sizes and weak decrease of the stellar velocity dispersions since z = 2. At the end of a rapid early phase of star-formation, where stars are created from infalling cold gas, our simulated galaxies are all compact with projected half-mass radii of <~ 1 kpc and central line-of-sight velocity dispersions of ~ 262 km s^-1. At lower redshifts (z < 2) those galaxies grow predominantly by the accretion of smaller stellar systems and evolve towards the observed local mass-size and mass-velocity dispersion relations. This loss of compactness is accompanied with an increase of central dark matter fractions. We find that the structural evolution of massive galaxies can be explained by frequent minor stellar mergers, which is the dominant mode of accretion for our simulated galaxies.