NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Tests of the Tully-Fisher relation. 1: Scatter in infrared magnitude versus 21 cm widthWe examine the precision of the Tully-Fisher relation (TFR) using a sample of galaxies in the Coma region of the sky, and find that it is good to 5% or better in measuring relative distances. Total magnitudes and disk axis ratios are derived from H and I band surface photometry, and Arecibo 21 cm profiles define the rotation speeds of the galaxies. Using 25 galaxies for which the disk inclination and 21 cm width are well defined, we find an rms deviation of 0.10 mag from a linear TFR with dI/d(log W(sub c)) = -5.6. Each galaxy is assumed to be at a distance proportional to its redshift, and an extinction correction of 1.4(1-b/a) mag is applied to the total I magnitude. The measured scatter is less than 0.15 mag using milder extinction laws from the literature. The I band TFR scatter is consistent with measurement error, and the 95% CL limits on the intrinsic scatter are 0-0.10 mag. The rms scatter using H band magnitudes is 0.20 mag (N = 17). The low width galaxies have scatter in H significantly in excess of known measurement error, but the higher width half of the galaxies have scatter consistent with measurement error. The H band TFR slope may be as steep as the I band slope. As the first applications of this tight correlation, we note the following: (1) the data for the particular spirals commonly used to define the TFR distance to the Coma cluster are inconsistent with being at a common distance and are in fact in free Hubble expansion, with an upper limit of 300 km/s on the rms peculiar line-of-sight velocity of these gas-rich spirals; and (2) the gravitational potential in the disks of these galaxies has typical ellipticity less than 5%. The published data for three nearby spiral galaxies with Cepheid distance determinations are inconsistent with our Coma TFR, suggesting that these local calibrators are either ill-measured or peculiar relative to the Coma Supercluster spirals, or that the TFR has a varying form in different locales.
Document ID
19950035231
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Bernstein, Gary M.
(Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ United States)
Guhathakurta, Puragra
(Princeton Univ. Observatory, Princeton, NJ, United States)
Raychaudhury, Somak
(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA United States)
Giovanelli, Riccardo
(Cornell Univ. Ithaca, NY, United States)
Haynes, Martha P.
(Cornell Univ. Ithaca, NY, United States)
Herter, Terry
(Cornell Univ. Ithaca, NY, United States)
Vogt, Nicole P.
(Cornell Univ. Ithaca, NY, United States)
Date Acquired
August 16, 2013
Publication Date
June 1, 1994
Publication Information
Publication: The Astronomical Journal
Volume: 107
Issue: 6
ISSN: 0004-6256
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Accession Number
95A66830
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NSF AST-92-18038
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAS5-26555
CONTRACT_GRANT: NSF AST-91-15459
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAS8-39073
CONTRACT_GRANT: NSF AST-90-23450
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

Available Downloads

There are no available downloads for this record.
No Preview Available