Two phase formation of massive elliptical galaxies : study through
  cross-correlation including spatial effect
  Formation mechanism of present day population of elliptical galaxies have
been revisited in the context of hierarchical cosmological models accompanied
by accretion and minor mergers through cross correlation function including
spatial effect. The present work investigates the formation and evolution of
several components of nearby massive early type galaxies (ETGs) through
cross-correlation in the spatial coordinates, right ascension and declination
(RA, DEC) and mass-size parameter space with high redshift $(0.5\leq z\leq2.7)$
ETGs. It is found that innermost components of nearby ETGs are highly
correlated with ETGs in the redshift range $(2\leq z\leq2.7)$ known as 'red
nuggets'. The intermediate and outermost parts have moderate correlations with
ETGs in the redshift range $(0.5\leq z\leq0.75)$. The quantitative measures are
highly consistent with the two phase formation scenario of massive nearby early
type galaxies as suggested by various authors and resolves the conflict raised
in a previous work suggesting other possibilities for the formation of
outermost part of nearby massive ETGs. The improvement is expected to be due to
inclusion of spatial effects in addition to other linear parameters.
