The surface-brightness-effective-size relation for elliptical galaxies in the cores of clusters

摘要: Surface photometry of 372 elliptical galaxies has been performed using CCD images the centers 97 nearby rich Abell clusters. The strong correlation between surface brightness and effective size, originally found by Kormendy (1977), is clear in data. Brightest cluster show much less scatter about mean relation defined these data than do lower-luminosity ellipticals, slope shallower for brightest galaxies; two results are tentative, however, because uncertain selection environmental effects. When combined with published central velocity dispersions, yields a that good agreement Djorgovski Davis (1987). Use surface-brightness/scale-length to measure lookback luminosity evolution stellar content promising.