Snapshots of Massive Relic Galaxies

A powerful new approach to study early galaxy formation is through massive relicgalaxies (MRGs) which are local analogs of the highredshift red nuggets thoughtto represent progenitors of today.s earlytype galaxies. Xray observation ofthe hot diffuse gas of MRGs is the most viable means to measure the globalproperties like the halo concentration, mass, and baryon fraction, but only twoMRGs have been identified that are suitable for such an Xray analysis. Toremedy this, we constructed a sample of MRGs to map in detail their Xrayemission. We propose a snapshot survey of the 5 MRGs in the sample which lackany Xray data. Deep followup exposures with XMMNewton and Chandra ofpromising targets will then be sought for detailed analysis of their mass distributions. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]