Bibcode
DOI
Graham, A. W.; Prieto, M.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 524, Issue 1, pp. L23-L26.
Advertised on:
10
1999
Journal
Citations
25
Refereed citations
22
Description
We investigate recent claims that the Hubble sequence of spiral galaxies
is scale-free. Fundamental to this investigation is the fact that within
the photometric data of 86 spiral galaxies from de Jong & van der
Kruit-from which these claims were made-a trend exists between
morphological type and bulge profile shape. While late-type spiral
bulges are described by an exponential luminosity profile, the
early-type spiral bulges are better described by an r^1/2 or r^1/4 law.
Taking the scale lengths from the best-fitting surface brightness
profile models (i.e., either using exponential, r^1/2, or r^1/4 law
profile parameters), we show that in all six passbands used (BVRIHK),
the early-type spiral galaxies have a larger r_e/h ratio than late-type
spiral galaxies. In contrast to this, fitting an exponential profile to
the bulges of all spiral galaxies results in the mean r_e/h ratio for
the early-type spiral galaxies actually being smaller than the mean
r_e/h ratio for the late-type spiral galaxies (at the 3 sigma
significance level using K-band data).