The SAURON project--IV. The mass-to-light ratio, the virial mass estimator and the Fundamental Plane of elliptical and lenticular galaxies

We investigate with unprecedented accuracy the correlations between the dynamical mass-to-light ratio M/L and other global observables of E and S0 galaxies. We construct two-integral Jeans and three-integral Schwarzschild dynamical models for a sample of 25 E/S0 galaxies with SAURON integral-field stellar kinematics. We find a tight correlation of the form (M/L)=(3.79+/-0.13)*(sigma/200 km/s)^(0.82+/-0.06) between the dynamical M/L (in the I-band) and the luminosity-weighted second moment (sigma) of the line-of-sight velocity-distribution within Re. The observed rms scatter in M/L for our sample is 17%, while the intrinsic scatter is negligible with respect to the measurement errors. The (M/L)-sigma relation…

• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  Awards: NAS 5-26555, 5-26555
• ST
  Space Telescope Science Institute

  Awards: NAS 5-26555, 5-26555, 26555
• NO
  Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
• IN
  Institut national des sciences de l'Univers