The Fundamental Plane of Radio Galaxies

Bettoni, Daniela; Falomo, Renato; Fasano, Giovanni; Govoni, Federica; Salvo, Marilena; Scarpa, Riccardo
Referencia bibliográfica

The Mass of Galaxies at Low and High Redshift: Proceedings of the European Southern Observatory and Universitäts-Sternwarte München Workshop Held in Venice, Italy, 24-26 October 2001, ESO ASTROPHYSICS SYMPOSIA. ISBN 3-540-00205-7. Edited by R. Bender and A. Renzini. Springer-Verlag, 2003, p. 154

Fecha de publicación:
0
2003
Número de autores
6
Número de autores del IAC
0
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
The global properties of early-type galaxies are fairly well described through a linear relation (the Fundamental Plane, FP [2],[3]) in the space defined by three observables: the effective radius r e, the average surface brightness μ_e and the central velocity dispersion σ_c. The FP has been shown to be close to the plane defining the virial equilibrium condition, over the assumption of a rigorous homology among galaxies [4]. The systematic deviation of the FP from the one defined by the virial equilibrium, has been interpreted as due to changes of the Mass to Light ratio (M/L) (due to different stellar content or to differences in dark matter distribution) or to the breakdown of the homology assumption. In this context it is therefore important to determine whether the FP has universal validity among ellipticals. In particular it is not yet clear if active and non-active galaxies do follow the same FP, as it would be expected in view of the recent results on Black Holes (BH) demography in galaxies [5],[8] that suggest all, inactive and active, luminous ellipticals contain a massive BH.