The Fundamental Plane of Galaxy Group Mergers

We present a series of hundreds of collisionless simulations of galaxy group mergers. These simulations are designed to test whether the properties of elliptical galaxies - including the key fundamental plane scaling relation, morphology and kinematics - can be simultaneously reproduced by dry multiple mergers in galaxy groups. Preliminary results indicate that galaxy group mergers can produce elliptical remnants lying on a tilted fundamental plane, even without a central dissipational component from a starburst. This suggests that multiple mergers in groups are an alternate avenue for the formation of elliptical galaxies which could well dominate for luminous ellipticals.