Structural properties of isolated early-type galaxies. The dependence of scaling relations on environment

Free access article

Issue		A&A Volume 472, Number 3, September IV 2007


Page(s)		773 - 784
Section		Extragalactic astronomy
DOI		http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20066398

A&A 472, 773-784 (2007)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20066398

Structural properties of isolated early-type galaxies. The dependence of scaling relations on environment

A. Nigoche-Netro¹, M. Moles¹, A. Ruelas-Mayorga², A. Franco-Balderas², and P. Kjærgaard³

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA), Camino bajo de Huetor 24, 18008 Granada, Spain
    e-mail: alberto.n@imaff.cfmac.csic.es; moles@iaa.es
² Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Apartado Postal 70-264, México D.F., C.P. 04510, México
    e-mail: rarm@astrocu.unam.mx
³ Copenhagen University Observatory, The Niels Bohr Institute For Astronomy, Physics and Geophysics, Juliane Maries Vej 30, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
    e-mail: per@astro.ku.dk

(Received 14 September 2006 / Accepted 18 May 2007)

Abstract
Aims.In order to investigate whether gravitational interactions between galaxies are able to modify their structural properties, we determine the Kormendy relation (KR) for a sample of isolated early-type galaxies (ETG) for which we have measured several photometric parameters. This relation is compared with that obtained for a sample of ETG of the Coma Cluster, and with that obtained for a sample of perturbed S0 galaxies contained within high-density environments.
Methods.Using very strict physical isolation criteria we selected a sample of 82 E and S0 galaxies from the CfA catalogue, in the redshift range 5000 km s^-1 $\leq$ cz < 10 000 km s^-1. We obtained the photometric parameters, $(r_{\rm e}$ , $\langle SB_{\rm e}\rangle)$ and total magnitude for 21 galaxies in the B filter and for 23 in the Gunn r filter.
Results.The main result we obtained is that the KR is the same for isolated galaxies and for galaxies in high-density environments or in interaction. In addition we found evidence that the intrinsic dispersion of the KR depends on the magnitude range within which the galaxies are contained (larger dispersion for larger magnitude range), and not on the degree of gravitational interaction to which these galaxies are subjected.

Key words: galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD -- galaxies: fundamental parameters -- galaxies: interactions

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