Early-type galaxies in the sloan digital sky survey. II. Correlations between observables

Mariangela Bernardi, Ravi K. Sheth, James Annis, Scott Burles, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Douglas P. Finkbeiner, David W. Hogg, Robert H. Lupton, David J. Schlegel, Mark SubbaRao, Neta A. Bahcall, John P. Blakeslee, J. Brinkmann, Francisco J. Castander, Andrew J. Connolly, István Csabai, Mamoru Doi, Masataka Fukugita, Joshua Frieman, Timothy HeckmanGregory S. Hennessy, Željko Ivezić, R. Knapp, Don Q. Lamb, Timothy McKay, Jeffrey A. Munn, Robert Nichol, Sadanori Okamura, Donald P. Schneider, Aniruddha R. Thakar, Donald G. York

    Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

    Abstract

    A magnitude-limited sample of nearly 9000 early-type galaxies, in the redshift range 0.01 ≤ z ≤ 0.3, was selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using morphological and spectral criteria. The sample was used to study how early-type galaxy observables, including luminosity L, effective radius Ro, surface brightness Io, color, and velocity dispersion σ, are correlated with one another. Measurement biases are understood with mock catalogs that reproduce all of the observed scaling relations and their dependences on fitting technique. At any given redshift, the intrinsic distribution of luminosities, sizes, and velocity dispersions in our sample are all approximately Gaussian. A maximum, likelihood analysis shows that σ ∝ L0.25±0.012, Ro ∝ L 0.63±0.025, and Ro ∝ I -0.075±0.02 in the r* band. In addition, the mass-to-light ratio within the effective radius scales as Mo/L 0.14±0.02 or Mo/L ∝ Mo 0.22±0.05, and galaxies with larger effective masses have smaller effective densities: Δo Mo -0.52±0.03. These relations are approximately the same in the g*, i*, and z* bands. Relative to the population at the median redshift in the sample, galaxies at lower and higher redshifts have evolved only little, with more evolution in the bluer bands. The luminosity function is consistent with weak passive luminosity evolution and a formation time of about 9 Gyr ago.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)1849-1865
    Number of pages17
    JournalAstronomical Journal
    Volume125
    Issue number4 1768
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Apr 2003

    Keywords

    • Galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD
    • Galaxies: evolution
    • Galaxies: fundamental parameters
    • Galaxies: photometry
    • Galaxies: stellar content

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Astronomy and Astrophysics
    • Space and Planetary Science

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