XMM Observations of Isolated Elliptical Galaxies

We propose to observe 10 galaxies from a unique sample of nearby,isolated ellipticals for which we have extensive optical and nearIRdata. We have three broad goals: (1) to determine the relationship, ifany, between the Xray halo mass and optical galaxy mass, (2) tocompare the general properties of isolated ellipticals with those ofellipticals in denser environments, and (3) to search for directevidence that ellipticals can evolve from the merger of poor groups.The sensitivity and spatial resolution of XMM makes it possible toexamine the relationship between the Xray and optical properties with truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]