Relation between dust and radio luminosity in optically selected early type galaxies

Abstract

We have surveyed an optical/IR selected sample of nearby E/S0 galaxies with and without nuclear dust structures with the VLA at 3.6 cm to a sensitivity of 100 $\hat{I}¼$Jy. We can construct a Radio Luminosity Function (RLF) of these galaxies to ~10^19 W/Hz and find that ~50% of these galaxies have AGNs at this level. The space density of these AGNs equals that of starburst galaxies at this luminosity. Several dust-free galaxies have low luminosity radio cores, and their RLF is not significantly less than that of the dusty galaxies.

8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&A