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Luminosity - velocity diagrams of virgo cluster spiral galaxies

University of British Columbia

Luminosity-velocity diagrams for 12 spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster are presented. Optical rotation curves obtained for the innermost portions of eight galaxies, complemented with velocity data from the literature, are coupled with luminosity growth curves to investigate the distance indication capabilities of the initial linear branch (ILB) feature and to delve into the physical basis for the T-F relation. Luminosity growth curves are obtained from Gunn r CCD images. The ILB feature is found to have a substantially larger dispersion in slope (~0.9) (and consequently, zero point) than previously thought. Plotting the magnitude and velocity of the final point in the ILB for all the galaxies in our sample yields a tight correlation (essentially an "inner T-F relation"), with the caveat that two galaxies are rejected from the fit (one is foreground, the other is a member of a binary pair). Ramifications of this relation are briefly discussed.

Text

2010-10-18

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/29342

Geophysics

University of British Columbia

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