1.65 micron H-band Surface Photometry of Galaxies. X: Structural and Dynamical Properties of Elliptical Galaxies

Abstract

We analyse the structural and dynamical properties of a sample of 324 nearby elliptical and dwarf elliptical galaxies observed during an extensive NIR survey in H-band (1.65 micron). The Fundamental Plane (FP) is determined and a significant tilt is assessed. The origins of such a tilt are investigated by means of a spherically symmetric, isotropic pressure supported dynamical model relying on the observed surface brightness profiles. The systematic variation of the shape coefficient converting the measured central velocity dispersion $sigm{a}_0$ into the virial rms velocity $sigm{a}_{rms}$ is found to be the main cause of the tilt, due to aperture effects. Moreover the ratio between the dynamical mass $M_{dyn}$ and the total H-band luminosity $L_H$ turns out to be roughly constant along the luminosity sequence of ellipticals: H-band luminosity is therefore a reliable and cheap estimator of the dynamical mass of the Es.

28 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication on ApJ

References in corpus (4)

• Weak homology of elliptical galaxies
• 1.65 micron (H-band) surface photometry of galaxies. VII: dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster
• 1.65 micron (H-band) surface photometry of galaxies. IX: photometric and structural properties of galaxies
• 1.65 micron (H-band) surface photometry of galaxies. VIII: the near-IR k-space at z=0

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