Faint dwarf spheroidals in the Fornax Cluster: A flat luminosity function
Abstract
We have discovered about 70 very faint dwarf galaxies in the Fornax Cluster. These dSphs candidates follow the same magnitude-surface brightness relation as their counterparts in the Local Group, and even extend it to fainter limits. The faintest dSph candidate in our sample has an absolute magnitude of M_V = -8.8 mag and a central surface brightness of mu_V = 27 mag/arcsec^2. There exists a tight color-magnitude relation for the early-type galaxies in Fornax that extends from the giant to the dwarf regime. The faint-end slope of the luminosity function of the early-type dwarfs is flat (alpha = -1.1+/-0.1), contrary to the results obtained by Kambas et al. (2000).
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0212044,
title = {Faint dwarf spheroidals in the Fornax Cluster: A flat luminosity function},
author = {Michael Hilker and Steffen Mieske and Leopoldo Infante},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0212044},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics (Letters)