Bibcode
D'Onofrio, M.; Capaccioli, M.; Caon, N.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 271, NO. 3/DEC1, P. 523, 1994
Advertised on:
12
1994
Citations
91
Refereed citations
79
Description
We present new evidence against the universality of the de Vaucouleurs
r^1/4^ law, considered to be the best empirical formula for fitting the
light profiles of elliptical galaxies, through the analysis of the
properties of the (D_n_/A_e_)-<μ>_e_ diagram for a
volume-limited sample of early-type galaxies that are members of the
Virgo and Fornax clusters. The r^1/4^ law turns out to be only a
particular case of the more general r^1/4^ law, where the exponent m is
found to correlate with the effective radius of the galaxy. We compare
our sample of early-type galaxies with that studied by Burstein et al.,
and find that the observed differences can be explained in terms of
procedures and methodologies adopted for measuring the global
photometric parameters such as total luminosities, effective radii,
effective surface brightnesses and D_n_ diameters.