The SBF Survey of Galaxy Distances. IV. SBF Magnitudes, Colors, and Distances

Abstract

We report data for I-band surface brightness Ñuctuation (SBF) magnitudes, (V [I) colors, and distance moduli for 300 galaxies. The survey contains E, S0, and early-type spiral galaxies in the proportions of 49 : 42 : 9 and is essentially complete for E galaxies to Hubble velocities of 2000 km s~1, with a substantial sampling of E galaxies out to 4000 km s~1. The median error in distance modulus is 0.22 mag. We also present two new results from the survey. (1) We compare the mean peculiar Ñow velocity (bulk Ñow) implied by our distances with predictions of typical cold dark matter transfer functions as a function of scale, and we Ðnd very good agreement with cold, dark matter cosmologies if the transfer function scale parameter ! and the power spectrum normalization are related by Derived p 8 p 8 !~0.5 B 2^0.5. directly from velocities, this result is independent of the distribution of galaxies or models for biasing. This modest bulk Ñow contradicts reports of large-scale, large-amplitude Ñows in the D200 Mpc diameter volume surrounding our survey volume. (2) We present a distance-independent measure of absolute galaxy luminosity, and show how it correlates with galaxy properties such as color and velocity dis-N persion, demonstrating its utility for measuring galaxy distances through large and unknown extinction.

Ultraluminous X-ray bursts in two ultracompact companions to nearby elliptical galaxies

“…About 12,000 seconds into the observation, the source flared dramatically, with six photons detected in a 22 second span, leading to a conservative peak flare count rate of 0.3 +0. 2 −0.1 counts s −1 , a factor of 70-200 increase in emission over its persistent (non-flare) state. Assuming the same spectral model as in the persistent state, the flare peaks at 9 +6 −4 × 10 40 erg s −1 .…”

“…One source (hereafter Source 1) is located at RA=12:42:51.4, Dec=+02:38:35 (J2000) near the Virgo elliptical galaxy NGC 4636 (d = 14.3 Mpc) 2,3 . The cumulative X-ray photon arrival time plot and a crude backgroundsubtracted light curve for this source derived from a ∼76,000 second Chandra observation taken on 2003 February 14 are shown in Figure 1.…”

The Structure and Interaction History of Moderate Luminosity Mergers

“…Due to its merger nature, there is a mix of populations originating from the progenitor galaxies as well as newly formed stars. Furthermore, we find a dust layer in the inner region, which also complicates SBF measurements, as stated by Tonry et al (2001). In Section 2 we give basic informations about the observations obtained, in Section 3 we describe the data reduction for the interferometric and single-dish data.…”

“…Note that we calculate the distance using the redshift of NGC 4441 as 36 Mpc and do not use the distance based on results of Tonry et al (2001) by using surface brightness fluctuations (SBF). There is a large disagreement between the results of both methods, which were not mentioned in the paper by Tonry et al (2001) due to an old, wrong velocity measurement of NGC 4441, which lies close to their SBF based result (i.e., a distance of 19 Mpc). We do not see, however, any reason, why NGC 4441 should deviate that strongly from the Hubble flow, since this galaxy does not lie close to a center of a cluster.…”

Measuring the Hubble Constant With the Hubble Space Telescope

“…Ferrarese et al (2000) also carried out a comprehensive comparison of Key Project distances with other prominent distance indicators, such as the tip of the red giant branch (e.g. Sakai et al 1997) and surface brightness fluctuations (Tonry et al 2001) (Figure 13) and the planetary nebula luminosity function (Ciardullo & Jacoby 1992) and the globular cluster luminosity function (Secker & Harris 1993) (Figure 14). …”