Abstract
We run a series of SPH simulations to estimate the time it takes for the disks of two spiral galaxies of similar masses to fuse into a single relaxed spheroid. This timescale can then be compared to the time interval preceding an observed elliptical galaxy, observed at a certain redshift, within which a major merger is limited to have occurred, within the standard Press-Schechter theory. This comparison yields a limit mass, at every observation redshift, above which an elliptical galaxy could not have been the result of a major merger.
