Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
1996-11-14
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Invited review, to appear in The Nature of Elliptical Galaxies, Proceedings of the Second Stromlo Symposium, eds. M. Arnaboldi
Scientific paper
We review the concept of the Fundamental Plane (FP), and present new results on the near-infrared FP. We show that the K-band FP differs both from the optical form and the virial expectation under the assumption of constant (M/L) and homology. Systematic variations of only the stellar populations parameters (age, metallicity, IMF) cannot reproduce the slopes of the FP simultaneously at both the optical and near-infrared wavelengths. There appears to be an additional effect which could be due to a systematic departure of the velocity distributions of elliptical galaxies from a homologous family. In order to distinguish between the different possible stellar populations parameters, the FP and its projections can be observed at a range of redshifts. We describe several such evolutionary tests: in the intercept of the color-magnitude relation; in the intercept of the Kormendy surface brightness-radius correlation; and in the intercept of the FP itself. All three tests are fully consistent with the population of cluster elliptical galaxies having formed at high redshift; this contradicts large, systematic age variations as a significant contributor to the slope of the FP.
Djorgovski Stanislav G.
Pahre Michael A.
No associations
LandOfFree
Observational Constraints on the Origins of the Fundamental Plane does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Observational Constraints on the Origins of the Fundamental Plane, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Observational Constraints on the Origins of the Fundamental Plane will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-352451