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Measuring shapes of galaxy images - II. Morphology of 2MASS galaxies
We study a sample of 112 galaxies of various Hubble types imaged in theTwo Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) in the near-infrared (NIR; 1-2 μm)J, H and Ks bands. The sample contains (optically classified)32 ellipticals, 16 lenticulars and 64 spirals acquired from the 2MASSExtended Source Catalogue (XSC).We use a set of non-parametric shape measures constructed from theMinkowski functionals (MFs) for galaxy shape analysis. We useellipticity (ɛ) and orientation angle (Φ) as shapediagnostics. With these parameters as functions of area within theisophotal contour, we note that the NIR elliptical galaxies withɛ > 0.2 show a trend of being centrally spherical andincreasingly flattened towards the edge, a trend similar to images inoptical wavelengths. The highly flattened elliptical galaxies showstrong change in ellipticity between the centre and the edge. Thelenticular galaxies show morphological properties resembling eitherellipticals or disc galaxies. Our analysis shows that almost half of thespiral galaxies appear to have bar-like features while the rest arelikely to be non-barred. Our results also indicate that almost one-thirdof spiral galaxies have optically hidden bars.The isophotal twist noted in the orientations of elliptical galaxiesdecreases with the flattening of these galaxies, indicating that twistand flattening are also anticorrelated in the NIR, as found in opticalwavelengths. The orientations of NIR lenticular and spiral galaxies showa wide range of twists.
| Circumnuclear Structure and Black Hole Fueling: Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS Imaging of 250 Active and Normal Galaxies
Why are the nuclei of some galaxies more active than others? If mostgalaxies harbor a central massive black hole, the main difference isprobably in how well it is fueled by its surroundings. We investigatethe hypothesis that such a difference can be seen in the detailedcircumnuclear morphologies of galaxies using several quantitativelydefined features, including bars, isophotal twists, boxy and diskyisophotes, and strong nonaxisymmetric features in unsharp-masked images.These diagnostics are applied to 250 high-resolution images of galaxycenters obtained in the near-infrared with NICMOS on the Hubble SpaceTelescope. To guard against the influence of possible biases andselection effects, we have carefully matched samples of Seyfert 1,Seyfert 2, LINER, starburst, and normal galaxies in their basicproperties, taking particular care to ensure that each was observed witha similar average scale (10-15 pc pixel-1). Severalmorphological differences among our five different spectroscopicclassifications emerge from the analysis. The H II/starburst galaxiesshow the strongest deviations from smooth elliptical isophotes, whilethe normal galaxies and LINERs have the least disturbed morphology. TheSeyfert 2s have significantly more twisted isophotes than any othercategory, and the early-type Seyfert 2s are significantly more disturbedthan the early-type Seyfert 1s. The morphological differences betweenSeyfert 1s and Seyfert 2s suggest that more is at work than simply theviewing angle of the central engine. They may correspond to differentevolutionary stages.
| Measuring shapes of galaxy images - I. Ellipticity and orientation
We suggest a set of morphological measures that we believe can help inquantifying the shapes of two-dimensional cosmological images such asgalaxies, clusters and superclusters of galaxies. The method employsnon-parametric morphological descriptors known as the Minkowskifunctionals in combination with geometric moments widely used in theimage analysis. For the purpose of visualization of the morphologicalproperties of image contour lines, we introduce three auxiliary ellipsesrepresenting the vector and tensor Minkowski functionals. We study thediscreteness, seeing and noise effects on elliptic contours as well astheir morphological characteristics such as the ellipticity andorientation. In order to reduce the effect of noise, we employ atechnique of contour smoothing. We test the method by studying simulatedelliptic profiles of toy spheroidal galaxies ranging in ellipticity fromE0 to E7. We then apply the method to real galaxies, including eightspheroidals, three disc spirals and one peculiar galaxy, as imaged inthe near-infrared Ks-band (2.2 μm) with the Two Micron AllSky Survey. The method is numerically very efficient and can be used inthe study of hundreds of thousands of images obtained in modern surveys.
| The Near-Infrared Ca II Triplet-σ Relation for Bulges of Spiral Galaxies
We present measurements of the near-infrared Ca II triplet (CaT, CaT*),Paschen (PaT), and magnesium (Mg I) indices for a well-studied sample of19 bulges of early to intermediate spiral galaxies. We find that boththe CaT* and CaT indices decrease with central velocity dispersionσ with small scatter. This dependence is similar to that recentlyfound by Cenarro for elliptical galaxies, implying a uniformCaT*-σ relation that applies to galaxies from ellipticals tointermediate-type spirals. The decrease of CaT and CaT* with σcontrasts with the well-known increase of another α-element index,Mg2, with σ. We discuss the role of Ca underabundance([Ca/Fe]<0) and initial mass function variations in the onset of theobserved relations.
| Minor axis kinematics of 19 S0-Sbc bulges
We present minor axis kinematic profiles for a well-studied sample of 19early- to intermediate-type disk galaxies. We introduce, for the firsttime, the use of single-burst stellar population (SSP) models to obtainstellar velocities, velocity dispersions and higher order Gauss-Hermitemoments (h3, h4) from galaxy spectra in thenear-infrared Ca II triplet region. SSP models, which employs thesynthetic spectra of \citet{vazdekis03}, provide a means to address thetemplate-mismatch problem, and are shown to provide as good or betterfits as traditional stellar templates. We anticipate the technique to beof particular use for high-redshift galaxy kinematics. We give themeasurement of a recently defined CaT* index\citep{cenarro01}, and describe the global properties of the bulgekinematics as derived from the kinematic profiles. We detectsmall-amplitude minor-axis rotation, generally due to inner isophotaltwists as a result of slightly triaxial bulges or misaligned innerdisks; such inner features do not show peculiar colors or distinctCaT* index values. Velocity dispersion profiles, which extendwell into the disk region, show a wide range of slopes. Flattened bulgestend to have shallower velocity dispersion profiles. The inferredsimilarity of bulge and disk radial velocity dispersions supports theinterpretation of these bulges as thickened disks.Appendix B is only available in electronic form athttp://www.edpsciences.org
| A new catalogue of ISM content of normal galaxies
We have compiled a catalogue of the gas content for a sample of 1916galaxies, considered to be a fair representation of ``normality''. Thedefinition of a ``normal'' galaxy adopted in this work implies that wehave purposely excluded from the catalogue galaxies having distortedmorphology (such as interaction bridges, tails or lopsidedness) and/orany signature of peculiar kinematics (such as polar rings,counterrotating disks or other decoupled components). In contrast, wehave included systems hosting active galactic nuclei (AGN) in thecatalogue. This catalogue revises previous compendia on the ISM contentof galaxies published by \citet{bregman} and \citet{casoli}, andcompiles data available in the literature from several small samples ofgalaxies. Masses for warm dust, atomic and molecular gas, as well asX-ray luminosities have been converted to a uniform distance scale takenfrom the Catalogue of Principal Galaxies (PGC). We have used twodifferent normalization factors to explore the variation of the gascontent along the Hubble sequence: the blue luminosity (LB)and the square of linear diameter (D225). Ourcatalogue significantly improves the statistics of previous referencecatalogues and can be used in future studies to define a template ISMcontent for ``normal'' galaxies along the Hubble sequence. The cataloguecan be accessed on-line and is also available at the Centre desDonnées Stellaires (CDS).The catalogue is available in electronic form athttp://dipastro.pd.astro.it/galletta/ismcat and at the CDS via anonymousftp to\ cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via\http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/405/5
| Bulges on the Fundamental Plane of early-type galaxies
In an ongoing effort to study the formation and evolution of galacticbulges, we have investigated the position of 19 bulges of type S0-Sbc onthe Fundamental Plane (FP). We find that bulges, in both B and K band,lie close to but slightly below the FP defined by ellipticals and S0s,i.e. are slightly brighter. There are hints that bulges of latermorphological type are situated below the other bulges in our sample.The FP results are consistent with the picture, obtained from our recentanalysis of HST colours, that bulges are old, except for the Sbcgalaxies. The fact that bulges lie so close to the FP of ellipticals andS0s implies that their formation epoch must have been similar to, atmost about 2.5 Gyr earlier than, cluster Es and S0s, and that thesurrounding disc does not significantly affect their structure.
| Nested and Single Bars in Seyfert and Non-Seyfert Galaxies
We analyze the observed properties of nested and single stellar barsystems in disk galaxies. The 112 galaxies in our sample comprise thelargest matched Seyfert versus non-Seyfert galaxy sample of nearbygalaxies with complete near-infrared or optical imaging sensitive tolength scales ranging from tens of parsecs to tens of kiloparsecs. Thepresence of bars is deduced by fitting ellipses to isophotes in HubbleSpace Telescope (HST) H-band images up to 10" radius and in ground-basednear-infrared and optical images outside the H-band images. This is aconservative approach that is likely to result in an underestimate ofthe true bar fraction. We find that a significant fraction of the samplegalaxies, 17%+/-4%, have more than one bar, and that 28%+/-5% of barredgalaxies have nested bars. The bar fractions appear to be stableaccording to reasonable changes in our adopted bar criteria. For thenested bars, we detect a clear division in length between thelarge-scale (primary) bars and small-scale (secondary) bars, in bothabsolute and normalized (to the size of the galaxy) length. We arguethat this bimodal distribution can be understood within the framework ofdisk resonances, specifically the inner Lindblad resonances (ILRs),which are located where the gravitational potential of the innermostgalaxy switches effectively from three-dimensional to two-dimensional.This conclusion is further strengthened by the observed distribution ofthe sizes of nuclear rings which are dynamically associated with theILRs. While primary bar sizes are found to correlate with the hostgalaxy sizes, no such correlation is observed for the secondary bars.Moreover, we find that secondary bars differ morphologically from singlebars. Our matched Seyfert and non-Seyfert samples show a statisticallysignificant excess of bars among the Seyfert galaxies at practically alllength scales. We confirm our previous results that bars are moreabundant in Seyfert hosts than in non-Seyfert galaxies and that Seyfertgalaxies always show a preponderance of ``thick'' bars compared to thebars in non-Seyfert galaxies. Finally, no correlation is observedbetween the presence of a bar and that of companion galaxies, evenrelatively bright ones. Overall, since star formation and dustextinction can be significant even in the H band, the stellar dynamicsof the central kiloparsec cannot always be revealed reliably by the useof near-infrared surface photometry alone.
| Bar Galaxies and Their Environments
The prints of the Palomar Sky Survey, luminosity classifications, andradial velocities were used to assign all northern Shapley-Ames galaxiesto either (1) field, (2) group, or (3) cluster environments. Thisinformation for 930 galaxies shows no evidence for a dependence of barfrequency on galaxy environment. This suggests that the formation of abar in a disk galaxy is mainly determined by the properties of theparent galaxy, rather than by the characteristics of its environment.
| The UZC-SSRS2 Group Catalog
We apply a friends-of-friends algorithm to the combined Updated ZwickyCatalog and Southern Sky Redshift Survey to construct a catalog of 1168groups of galaxies; 411 of these groups have five or more members withinthe redshift survey. The group catalog covers 4.69 sr, and all groupsexceed the number density contrast threshold, δρ/ρ=80. Wedemonstrate that the groups catalog is homogeneous across the twounderlying redshift surveys; the catalog of groups and their membersthus provides a basis for other statistical studies of the large-scaledistribution of groups and their physical properties. The medianphysical properties of the groups are similar to those for groupsderived from independent surveys, including the ESO Key Programme andthe Las Campanas Redshift Survey. We include tables of groups and theirmembers.
| HI observations of loose galaxy groups. I. Data and global properties
At Nançay, 21-cm H I line observations were made of 15spiral-dominated loose groups of galaxies, divided into two samples: an``interacting'' sample containing at least one pair of interactinggalaxies, and a ``control'' sample having no optical evidence ofinteractions or morphological disturbances among the group members. Theinteracting sample consists of 62 galaxies representing 9 differentgroups, and the control sample contains 40 galaxies representing 6groups. Of the 91 galaxy and galaxy pairs observed, 74 were detected,while upper limits were placed on the remaining 17 objects. Thesehomogeneous H I data, which will be used in future analyses, providecomparative information on the H I content of groups and serve as aprobe of the vicinity of the target spirals for H I clouds or very lowsurface brightness gas-rich galaxies.
| Nearby Optical Galaxies: Selection of the Sample and Identification of Groups
In this paper we describe the Nearby Optical Galaxy (NOG) sample, whichis a complete, distance-limited (cz<=6000 km s-1) andmagnitude-limited (B<=14) sample of ~7000 optical galaxies. Thesample covers 2/3 (8.27 sr) of the sky (|b|>20deg) andappears to have a good completeness in redshift (97%). We select thesample on the basis of homogenized corrected total blue magnitudes inorder to minimize systematic effects in galaxy sampling. We identify thegroups in this sample by means of both the hierarchical and thepercolation ``friends-of-friends'' methods. The resulting catalogs ofloose groups appear to be similar and are among the largest catalogs ofgroups currently available. Most of the NOG galaxies (~60%) are found tobe members of galaxy pairs (~580 pairs for a total of ~15% of objects)or groups with at least three members (~500 groups for a total of ~45%of objects). About 40% of galaxies are left ungrouped (field galaxies).We illustrate the main features of the NOG galaxy distribution. Comparedto previous optical and IRAS galaxy samples, the NOG provides a densersampling of the galaxy distribution in the nearby universe. Given itslarge sky coverage, the identification of groups, and its high-densitysampling, the NOG is suited to the analysis of the galaxy density fieldof the nearby universe, especially on small scales.
| Correlations among Global Photometric Properties of Disk Galaxies
Using a two-dimensional galaxy image decomposition technique, we extractglobal bulge and disk parameters for a complete sample of early-typedisk galaxies in the near-infrared K band. We find significantcorrelation of the bulge parameter n with the central bulge surfacebrightness μb(0) and with effective radiusre. Using bivariate analysis techniques, we findthat logn, logre, and μb(0) are distributed ina plane with small scatter. We do not find a strong correlation of nwith bulge-to-disk luminosity ratio, contrary to earlier reports. Forthese early-type disk galaxies, re and the diskscale length rd are well correlated, but withlarge scatter. We examine the implications of our results for variousbulge formation scenarios in disk galaxies.
| Galactic bulges from Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS observations: ages and dust
We present optical and near-infrared colour maps of the central regionsof bulges of S0 and spiral galaxies obtained with WFPC2 and NICMOS onthe Hubble Space Telescope (HST). By combined use of HST andground-based data, the colour information spans a region from a few tensof pc to a few kpc. In almost all galaxies, the colour profiles in thecentral 100-200pc become more rapidly redder. We attribute the highcentral colour indices to a central concentration of dust. We infer anaverage extinction at the centre of AV=0.6-1.0mag. Severalobjects show central dust rings or discs at subkpc scales similar tothose found by others in giant ellipticals. For galactic bulges of typesS0 to Sb, the tightness of the B-I versus I-H relation suggests that theage spread among bulges of early-type galaxies is small, at most 2Gyr.Colours at 1Reff, where we expect extinction to benegligible, are similar to those of elliptical galaxies in the Comacluster, suggesting that these bulges formed at the same time as thebright galaxies in Coma. Furthermore, the galaxy ages are found to beindependent of their environment. As it is likely that Coma was formedat redshift z>3, our bulges, which are in groups and in the field,must also have been formed at this epoch. Bulges of early-type spiralscannot be formed by secular evolution of bars at recent epochs, becausesuch bulges would be much younger. There are three galaxies of type Sbcand later; their bulges are younger and could perhaps arise from secularevolution of transient bars. Our results are in good agreement withsemi-analytic predictions, which also predict that bulges, in clustersand in the field, are as old as giant ellipticals in clusters.
| Arcsecond Positions of UGC Galaxies
We present accurate B1950 and J2000 positions for all confirmed galaxiesin the Uppsala General Catalog (UGC). The positions were measuredvisually from Digitized Sky Survey images with rms uncertaintiesσ<=[(1.2")2+(θ/100)2]1/2,where θ is the major-axis diameter. We compared each galaxymeasured with the original UGC description to ensure high reliability.The full position list is available in the electronic version only.
| Two-dimensional Galaxy Image Decomposition
We propose a two-dimensional galaxy fitting algorithm to extractparameters of the bulge, disk, and a central point source from broadbandimages of galaxies. We use a set of realistic galaxy parameters toconstruct a large number of model galaxy images, which we then use asinput to our galaxy decomposition program to test it. We elucidate ourprocedure by extracting parameters for three disk galaxies-NGC 5326,5587, and 7311-and compare our results with those previously reported inthe literature.
| The effects of a disc field on bulge surface brightness
Collisionless N-body simulations are used in an effort to reproduce theobserved tendency of the surface brightness profile of bulges to changeprogressively from an R exp 1/4 law to an exponential, going from early-to late-type spirals. A possible cause for this is the formation of thedisk later in the history of the galaxy, and this is simulated byapplying on the N-body bulge the force field of an exponential disk thesurface density of which increases with time. It is shown that n, theindex of the Sersic law that best describes the surface brightnessprofile, does indeed decrease from 4 (the de Vaucouleurs law) to smallervalues; this decrease is larger for more massive and more compact disks.A large part of the observed trend of n with B/D ratio is explained, andmany of the actual profiles can be matched exactly by the simulations.The correlation between the disk scale length and bulge effectiveradius, used recently to support the 'secular evolution' origin forbulges, is also shown to arise naturally in a scenario like this. Thismechanism, however, saturates at around n = 2 and exponential bulgescannot be produced; as n gets closer to 1, the profile becomesincreasingly robust against a disk field. These results provide strongsupport to the old-bulge hypothesis for the early-type bulges. Theexponential bulges, however, remain essentially unexplained; the resultshere suggest that they did not begin their lives as R exp 1/4 spheroids,and hence were probably formed, at least in part, by different processesfrom those of early-type spirals.
| Groups of galaxies. III. Some empirical characteristics.
Not Available
| Bulge-Disk Decomposition of 659 Spiral and Lenticular Galaxy Brightness Profiles
We present one of the largest homogeneous sets of spiral and lenticulargalaxy brightness profile decompositions completed to date. The 659galaxies in our sample have been fitted with a de Vaucouleurs law forthe bulge component and an inner-truncated exponential for the diskcomponent. Of the 659 galaxies in the sample, 620 were successfullyfitted with the chosen fitting functions. The fits are generally welldefined, with more than 90% having rms deviations from the observedprofile of less than 0.35 mag. We find no correlations of fittingquality, as measured by these rms residuals, with either morphologicaltype or inclination. Similarly, the estimated errors of the fittedcoefficients show no significant trends with type or inclination. Thesedecompositions form a useful basis for the study of the lightdistributions of spiral and lenticular galaxies. The object base issufficiently large that well-defined samples of galaxies can be selectedfrom it.
| Catalogue of HI maps of galaxies. I.
A catalogue is presented of galaxies having large-scale observations inthe HI line. This catalogue collects from the literature the informationthat characterizes the observations in the 21-cm line and the way thatthese data were presented by means of maps, graphics and tables, forshowing the distribution and kinematics of the gas. It containsfurthermore a measure of the HI extension that is detected at the levelof the maximum sensitivity reached in the observations. This catalogueis intended as a guide for references on the HI maps published in theliterature from 1953 to 1995 and is the basis for the analysis of thedata presented in Paper II. The catalogue is only available inelectronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp 130.79.128.5 orhttp://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/Abstract.html
| Kinematics of the local universe. VII. New 21-cm line measurements of 2112 galaxies
This paper presents 2112 new 21-cm neutral hydrogen line measurementscarried out with the meridian transit Nan\c cay radiotelescope. Amongthese data we give also 213 new radial velocities which complement thoselisted in three previous papers of this series. These new measurements,together with the HI data collected in LEDA, put to 6 700 the number ofgalaxies with 21-cm line width, radial velocity, and apparent diameterin the so-called KLUN sample. Figure 5 and Appendices A and B forcorresponding comments are available in electronic form at thehttp://www.edpsciences.com
| Total magnitude, radius, colour indices, colour gradients and photometric type of galaxies
We present a catalogue of aperture photometry of galaxies, in UBVRI,assembled from three different origins: (i) an update of the catalogueof Buta et al. (1995) (ii) published photometric profiles and (iii)aperture photometry performed on CCD images. We explored different setsof growth curves to fit these data: (i) The Sersic law, (ii) The net ofgrowth curves used for the preparation of the RC3 and (iii) A linearinterpolation between the de Vaucouleurs (r(1/4) ) and exponential laws.Finally we adopted the latter solution. Fitting these growth curves, wederive (1) the total magnitude, (2) the effective radius, (3) the colourindices and (4) gradients and (5) the photometric type of 5169 galaxies.The photometric type is defined to statistically match the revisedmorphologic type and parametrizes the shape of the growth curve. It iscoded from -9, for very concentrated galaxies, to +10, for diffusegalaxies. Based in part on observations collected at the Haute-ProvenceObservatory.
| Near-infrared surface photometry of bulges and disks of spiral galaxies. The data
We present optical and near-infrared (NIR) surface brightness and colourprofiles, in bands ranging from U to K, for the disk and bulgecomponents of a complete sample of 30 nearby S0 to Sbc galaxies withinclinations larger than 50 deg. We describe in detail the observationsand the determination of colour parameters. Calibrated monochromatic andreal-colour images are presented, as well as colour index maps. Thisdata set, tailored for the study of the population characteristics ofgalaxy bulges, provides useful information on the colours of inner disksas well. In related papers, we have used them to quantify colourgradients in bulges, and age differentials between bulge and inner disk.
| An Einstein X-Ray Survey of Optically Selected Galaxies. I. Data
We present the results of a complete Einstein imaging proportionalcounter X-ray survey of optically selected galaxies from theShapley-Ames Catalog, the Uppsala General Catalogue, and the EuropeanSouthern Observatory Catalog. Well-defined optical criteria are used toselect the galaxies, and X-ray fluxes are measured at the opticallydefined positions. The result is a comprehensive list of X-ray detectionand upper limit measurements for 1018 galaxies. Of these, 827 haveeither independent distance estimates or radial velocities. Associatedoptical, redshift, and distance data have been assembled for thesegalaxies, and their distances come from a combination of directlypredicted distances and those predicted from the Faber-Burstein GreatAttractor/Virgocentric infall model. The accuracy of the X-ray fluxeshas been checked in three different ways; all are consistent with thederived X-ray fluxes being of <=0.1 dex accuracy. In particular,there is agreement with previously published X-ray fluxes for galaxiesin common with a 1991 study by Roberts et al. and a 1992 study byFabbiano et al. The data presented here will be used in further studiesto characterize the X-ray output of galaxies of various morphologicaltypes and thus to enable the determination of the major sourcescontributing to the X-ray emission from galaxies.
| Ages of Galaxies Bulges and Disks From Optical and Near-Infrared Colors
We compare optical and near-infrared colors of disks and bulges in adiameter-limited sample of inclined, bright, nearby, early-type spirals.Color profiles along wedge apertures at 15^deg^ from the major axis andon the minor axis on the side of the galaxy opposite to the dust laneare used to assign nominal colors for the inner disks (at 2 scalelength) and for the bulges (~0.5r_eff_), respectively. We estimate thatthe effects of dust reddening and the cross-talk between the colors ofthe two components is negligible. We find that color differences(bulge-disk) are very small: {DELTA}(U-R) = 0.126+/-0.165,{DELTA}(R-K)=0078+/-0.165. Disks tend to be bluer by an amount threetimes smaller than that reported by Bothun & Gregg [ApJ,350,73(1990)] for S0s. Color variations from galaxy to galaxy are muchlarger than color differences between disk and bulge in each galaxy.Probably, the underlying old population of disks and bulges is much moresimilar than the population paradigm would lead us to believe. Impliedage differences, assuming identical metallicities, are less than 30%.
| Optical and I-band surface photometry of spiral galaxies. I. The data.
We present V- and I-band CCD surface photometry on 234 inclined Sa-Sdgalaxies, completed by similar data in B and R for a reduced subsample.In this first paper of a series, the reduction of the data is discussed,and several comparisons are made with other recent works. Radialprofiles are presented for the surface brightness and thecharacteristics of ellipses fitted to isophotes; global, effective, andisophotal parameters are listed. All the results are available inelectronic form.
| An image database. II. Catalogue between δ=-30deg and δ=70deg.
A preliminary list of 68.040 galaxies was built from extraction of35.841 digitized images of the Palomar Sky Survey (Paper I). For eachgalaxy, the basic parameters are obtained: coordinates, diameter, axisratio, total magnitude, position angle. On this preliminary list, weapply severe selection rules to get a catalog of 28.000 galaxies, wellidentified and well documented. For each parameter, a comparison is madewith standard measurements. The accuracy of the raw photometricparameters is quite good despite of the simplicity of the method.Without any local correction, the standard error on the total magnitudeis about 0.5 magnitude up to a total magnitude of B_T_=17. Significantsecondary effects are detected concerning the magnitudes: distance toplate center effect and air-mass effect.
| The Shape of the Luminosity Profiles of Bulges of Spiral Galaxies
Using a 2D generalization of Kent's model-independent decompositionmethod, we extract the K-band light profiles of the bulges of a sampleof field galaxies with morphological types ranging from S0 to Sbc. Wethen examine the shape of the bulge profiles, by means of fitting aseeing-convolved power law of the form μ(r) is proportional tor^1/n^, where the exponent n is allowed to vary. The best-fittingexponent n is found to vary systematically from values around 1(exponential) to 6 from late- to early- type bulges; the profiles tendto fall off more steeply in the outer parts for the later types. Thesame trend is seen as a function of bulge to disc ratio. Application ofthe method to artificial data proves that this result is not caused bydisc-light contamination. There are also indications that n becomeslarger with increasing total luminosity and radius of the bulge. Asimilar relation has recently been found for elliptical galaxies. Thesmooth trend of n with morphological type shows that the formation of orinteraction with the disc has affected the density distribution of thebulge.
| Colors and color gradients in bulges of galaxies
We have obtained surface photometry in U, B, R, and I for a completeoptically selected sample of 45 early-type spiral galaxies, toinvestigate the colors and color gradients of spiral bulges. Colorprofiles in U-R, B-R, U-B, and R-I have been determined in wedgesopening on the semiminor axes. Based on several criteria, like thesmoothness of the color profiles, the absence of dust lanes, and thecentral colors, we have defined a subsample of 18 objects whose colorsare largely unaffected by dust. We believe such colors are suitable forinferring properties of the stellar populations of bulges. We find thatthe colors of bulges are predominantly bluer than those of ellipticals.This result holds even when bulges are compared to ellipticals of thesame luminosity, and indicates that bulges are younger and/or more metalpoor than old elliptical galaxies. Most bulges do not reach solarmetallicities. Bulges show predominantly negative color gradients (blueroutward). For bright bulges (MBulgeR is less than-20.0), the magnitude of the gradient increases with bulge luminosity.For fainter bulges, gradients scatter around large negative values. Thebehavior of color gradients as a function of bulge luminosity suggestsdifferent formation mechanisms for faint and bright spheroids. Forbright bulges, the scaling of gradients with luminosity suggests aformation process involving dissipation. The similarity with ellipticalssuggests that the formation of the disk did not affect the stellarpopulations of the bulge in a major way. For small bulges (MRis greater than -20), the existence of pronounced color gradientssuggests a different formation mechanism. For these objects, thepresence of the disk may have severely affected the radial populationdistribution in the bulge.
| A revised catalog of CfA1 galaxy groups in the Virgo/Great Attractor flow field
A new identification of groups and clusters in the CfA1 Catalog ofHuchra et al. is presented, using a percolation algorithm to identifydensity enhancements. It is shown that in the resulting catalog,contamination by interlopers is significantly reduced. The Schechterluminosity function is redetermined, including the Malmquist bias.
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