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The fundamental plane of isolated early-type galaxies
Here we present new measurements of effective radii, surfacebrightnesses and internal velocity dispersions for 23 isolatedearly-type galaxies. The photometric properties are derived from newmulticolour imaging of ten galaxies, whereas the central kinematics forseven galaxies are taken from forthcoming work by Hau & Forbes.These are supplemented with data from the literature. We reproduce thecolour-magnitude and Kormendy relations and strengthen the result of therecent work of Reda et al. that isolated galaxies follow the samephotometric relations as galaxies in high-density environments. We alsofind that some isolated galaxies reveal fine structure indicative of arecent merger, while others appear undisturbed. We examine theFundamental Plane both in the traditional Re,μe, σ space and also in κ space. Most isolatedgalaxies follow the same Fundamental Plane tilt and scatter for galaxiesin high-density environments. However, a few galaxies notably deviatefrom the Plane in the sense of having smaller M/L ratios. This can beunderstood in terms of their younger stellar populations, which arepresumably induced by a gaseous merger. Overall, isolated galaxies havesimilar properties to those in groups and clusters with a slightenhancement in the frequency of recent mergers/interactions.
| Group, field and isolated early-type galaxies - II. Global trends from nuclear data
We have derived ages, metallicities and enhanced-element ratios[α/Fe] for a sample of 83 early-type galaxies essentially ingroups, the field or isolated objects. The stellar-population propertiesderived for each galaxy correspond to the nuclear re/8aperture extraction. The median age found for Es is 5.8+/-0.6 Gyr andthe average metallicity is +0.37+/-0.03 dex. For S0s, the median age is3.0+/-0.6 Gyr and [Z/H]= 0.53+/-0.04 dex. We compare the distribution ofour galaxies in the Hβ-[MgFe] diagram with Fornax galaxies. Ourelliptical galaxies are 3-4 Gyr younger than Es in the Fornax cluster.We find that the galaxies lie in a plane defined by [Z/H]= 0.99logσ0- 0.46 log(age) - 1.60, or in linear terms Z~σ0× (age) -0.5. More massive (largerσ0) and older galaxies present, on average, large[α/Fe] values, and therefore must have undergone shorterstar-formation time-scales. Comparing group against field/isolatedgalaxies, it is not clear that environment plays an important role indetermining their stellar-population history. In particular, ourisolated galaxies show ages differing by more than 8 Gyr. Finally weexplore our large spectral coverage to derive log(O/H) metallicity fromthe Hα and NIIλ6584 and compare it with model-dependent[Z/H]. We find that the O/H abundances are similar for all galaxies, andwe can interpret it as if most chemical evolution has already finishedin these galaxies.
| Group, field and isolated early-type galaxies - I. Observations and nuclear data
This is the first paper of a series on the investigation of stellarpopulation properties and galaxy evolution of an observationallyhomogeneous sample of early-type galaxies in groups, field and isolatedgalaxies.Here we present high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) long-slit spectroscopyof 86 nearby elliptical and S0 galaxies. Eight of them are isolated,selected according to a rigorous criterion, which guarantees a genuinelow-density subsample. The present survey has the advantage of coveringa larger wavelength range than normally found in the literature, whichincludes [OIII]λ5007 and Hα, both lines important foremission correction. Among the 86 galaxies with S/N >= 15 (perresolution element, for re/8 central aperture), 57 have theirHβ-index corrected for emission (the average correction is 0.190Åin Hβ) and 42 galaxies reveal [OIII]λ5007 emission,of which 16 also show obvious Hα emission. Most of the galaxies inthe sample do not show obvious signs of disturbances nor tidal featuresin the morphologies, although 11 belong to the Arp catalogue of peculiargalaxies; only three of them (NGC 750, 751 and 3226) seem to be stronglyinteracting. We present the measurement of 25 central line-strengthindices calibrated to the Lick/IDS system. Kinematic information isobtained for the sample. We analyse the line-strength index versusvelocity dispersion relations for our sample of mainly low-densityenvironment galaxies, and compare the slope of the relations withcluster galaxies from the literature. Our main findings are that theindex-σ0 relations presented for low-density regionsare not significantly different from those of cluster E/S0s. The slopeof the index-σ0 relations does not seem to change forearly-type galaxies of different environmental densities, but thescatter of the relations seems larger for group, field and isolatedgalaxies than for cluster galaxies.
| The photometric properties of isolated early-type galaxies
Isolated galaxies are important because they probe the lowest densityregimes inhabited by galaxies. We define a sample of 36 nearby isolatedearly-type galaxies for further study. Our isolation criteria requirethem to have no comparable-mass neighbours within 2 B-band magnitudes,0.67 Mpc in the plane of the sky and 700 km s-1 in recessionvelocity. New wide-field optical imaging of 10 isolated galaxies withthe Anglo-Australian Telescope confirms their early-type morphology andrelative isolation. We also present imaging of four galaxy groups as acontrol sample. The isolated galaxies are shown to be moregravitationally isolated than the group galaxies. We find that theisolated early-type galaxies have a mean effective colour of(B-R)e= 1.54 +/- 0.14, similar to their high-densitycounterparts. They reveal a similar colour-magnitude relation slope andsmall intrinsic scatter to cluster ellipticals. They also follow theKormendy relation of surface brightness versus size for luminous clustergalaxies. Such properties suggest that the isolated galaxies formed at asimilar epoch to cluster galaxies, such that the bulk of their stars arevery old. However, our galaxy modelling reveals evidence for dust lanes,plumes, shells, boxy and disc isophotes in four out of nine galaxies.Thus at least some isolated galaxies have experienced a recentmerger/accretion event, which may have induced a small burst of starformation. We derive luminosity functions for the isolated galaxies andfind a faint slope of -1.2, which is similar to the `universal' slopefound in a wide variety of environments. We examine the number densitydistribution of galaxies in the field of the isolated galaxies. Only thevery faintest dwarf galaxies (MR>~-15.5) appear to beassociated with the isolated galaxies, whereas anyintermediate-luminosity galaxies appear to lie in the background.Finally, we discuss possible formation scenarios for isolated early-typegalaxies. Early epoch formation and a merger/accretion of galaxies arepossible explanations. The collapse of a large, virialized group is anunlikely explanation, but that of a poor group remains viable.
| Redshift-Distance Survey of Early-Type Galaxies: Spectroscopic Data
We present central velocity dispersions and Mg2 line indicesfor an all-sky sample of ~1178 elliptical and S0 galaxies, of which 984had no previous measures. This sample contains the largest set ofhomogeneous spectroscopic data for a uniform sample of ellipticalgalaxies in the nearby universe. These galaxies were observed as part ofthe ENEAR project, designed to study the peculiar motions and internalproperties of the local early-type galaxies. Using 523 repeatedobservations of 317 galaxies obtained during different runs, the dataare brought to a common zero point. These multiple observations, takenduring the many runs and different instrumental setups employed for thisproject, are used to derive statistical corrections to the data and arefound to be relatively small, typically <~5% of the velocitydispersion and 0.01 mag in the Mg2 line strength. Typicalerrors are about 8% in velocity dispersion and 0.01 mag inMg2, in good agreement with values published elsewhere.
| Redshift-Distance Survey of Early-Type Galaxies: Circular-Aperture Photometry
We present R-band CCD photometry for 1332 early-type galaxies, observedas part of the ENEAR survey of peculiar motions using early-typegalaxies in the nearby universe. Circular apertures are used to tracethe surface brightness profiles, which are then fitted by atwo-component bulge-disk model. From the fits, we obtain the structuralparameters required to estimate galaxy distances using theDn-σ and fundamental plane relations. We find thatabout 12% of the galaxies are well represented by a pure r1/4law, while 87% are best fitted by a two-component model. There are 356repeated observations of 257 galaxies obtained during different runsthat are used to derive statistical corrections and bring the data to acommon system. We also use these repeated observations to estimate ourinternal errors. The accuracy of our measurements are tested by thecomparison of 354 galaxies in common with other authors. Typical errorsin our measurements are 0.011 dex for logDn, 0.064 dex forlogre, 0.086 mag arcsec-2 for<μe>, and 0.09 for mRC,comparable to those estimated by other authors. The photometric datareported here represent one of the largest high-quality and uniformall-sky samples currently available for early-type galaxies in thenearby universe, especially suitable for peculiar motion studies.Based on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO),National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by theAssociation of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., undercooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF);European Southern Observatory (ESO); Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory(FLWO); and the MDM Observatory on Kitt Peak.
| 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
| The Optical and Near-Infrared Morphologies of Isolated Early-Type Galaxies
To study early-type galaxies in their simplest environments, we haveconstructed a well-defined sample of 30 isolated galaxies. The samplecontains all early-type galaxies listed in the Third Reference Catalogueof Bright Galaxies (RC3) with no other cataloged galaxy with a knownredshift lying within a projected radius of 1h-1100 Mpc and +/-1000 km s-1 (where weuse the recession velocities in the RC3). We have obtained optical andnear-infrared images of 23 of the galaxies and of a comparison sample of13 early-type galaxies in X-ray-detected poor groups of galaxies. Wehave applied the techniques of unsharp-masking, galaxy model division,and color maps to search for morphological features that might provideclues to the evolution of these galaxies. Evidence for dust features isfound in approximately 75% of both the isolated and group galaxies (17of 22 and 9 of 12, respectively). However, shells or tidal features aremuch more prevalent in our isolated sample than in our group sample (9of 22=41% vs. 1 of 12=8%, respectively). The isolation and colors ofthese shell galaxies make it unlikely that tidal interactions orasymmetric star formation are the causes of such features. One modelthat is not ruled out is that mergers produce the shells. If shells anddust are both merger signatures, the absence of shells in groupelliptical galaxies implies that shells (1) form more easily, (2) areyounger, and/or (3) are longer lived in isolated environments.
| 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.
| 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.
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