THE SAMI GALAXY SURVEY: TOWARD A UNIFIED DYNAMICAL SCALING RELATION FOR GALAXIES OF ALL TYPES

L. Cortese, L. M. R. Fogarty, I.-T. Ho, K. Bekki, J. Bland-Hawthorn, M. Colless, W. Couch, S. M. Croom, K. Glazebrook, J. Mould, N. Scott, R. Sharp (+18 others)
2014 Astrophysical Journal Letters  
We take advantage of the first data from the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field (SAMI) Galaxy Survey to investigate the relation between the kinematics of gas and stars, and stellar mass in a comprehensive sample of nearby galaxies. We find that all 235 objects in our sample, regardless of their morphology, lie on a tight relation linking stellar mass (M_*) to internal velocity quantified by the S_0.5 parameter, which combines the contribution of both dispersion (σ) and rotational velocity
more » ... V_rot) to the dynamical support of a galaxy (S_0.5=√(0.5V_rot^2+σ^2)). Our results are independent of the baryonic component from which σ and V_rot are estimated, as the S_0.5 of stars and gas agree remarkably well. This represents a significant improvement compared to the canonical M_* vs. V_rot and M_* vs. σ relations. Not only is no sample pruning necessary, but also stellar and gas kinematics can be used simultaneously, as the effect of asymmetric drift is taken into account once V_rot and σ are combined. Our findings illustrate how the combination of dispersion and rotational velocities for both gas and stars can provide us with a single dynamical scaling relation valid for galaxies of all morphologies across at least the stellar mass range 8.5<log(M_*/M_)<11. Such relation appears to be more general and at least as tight as any other dynamical scaling relation, representing a unique tool for investigating the link between galaxy kinematics and baryonic content, and a less biased comparison with theoretical models.
doi:10.1088/2041-8205/795/2/l37 fatcat:64jkcaojnrds7p3s47spw5m3qy