The Mid-IR Properties of Early Type Galaxies with Positive Optical Color Gradients

Radial color gradient of early type galaxies (ETGs) is a key tool for studying the evolution of these galaxies. In this work, we investigated whether ETGs having negative or positive color gradients show any distinguishable characteristics in the galaxy properties. We selected sample of 211 ETGs at 0.01 < z < 0.5 in the Spitzer FLS field, then we constructed u-R color gradients. We obtained the stellar mass, specific star formation rate and fluxes of emission lines of each ETG from MPA-JHU DR7 catalog. Spitzer IRAC and MIPS 24 micron data were used to detect dust emission from the ETGs. Preliminary result shows that less massive galaxies are likely to have positive color gradients, which is probably due to the ongoing star formation in the galaxy core. Almost all AGNs have negative color gradients. This probably is because AGNs are located in relatively massive galaxies with little ongoing star formation. There exists a marginal difference in the percentage of galaxies with PAH emission between ETGs having positive color gradient and negative color gradient. This also supports that ETGs with positive color gradient are galaxies having enhanced star formation.