  AIM:Learn more about the origin of shells and dust in early type galaxies.
METHOD: V-I colours of shells and underlying galaxies are derived, using HST
Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) data. A galaxy model is made locally in
wedges and subtracted to determine shell profiles and colours. We applied
Voronoi binning to our data to get smoothed colour maps of the galaxies.
Comparison with N-body simulations from the literature gives more insight to
the origin of the shell features. Shell positions and dust characteristics are
inferred from model galaxy subtracted images. RESULT: The ACS images reveal
shells well within the effective radius in some galaxies (at 1.7 kpc in the
case of NGC 5982). In some cases, strong nuclear dust patches prevent detection
of inner shells. Most shells have colours which are similar to the underlying
galaxy. Some inner shells are redder than the galaxy. All six shell galaxies
show out of dynamical equilibrium dust features, like lanes or patches, in
their central regions. Our detection rate for dust in the shell ellipticals is
greater than that found from HST archive data for a sample of normal early-type
galaxies, at the 95% confidence level. CONCLUSIONS: The merger model describes
better the shell distributions and morphologies than the interaction model. Red
shell colours are most likely due to the presence of dust and/or older stellar
populations. The high prevalence and out of dynamical equilibrium morphologies
of the central dust features point towards external influences being
responsible for visible dust features in early type shell galaxies. Inner
shells are able to manifest themselves in relatively old shell systems.
