WISE TF: A Mid-infrared, 3.4-micron Extension of the Tully-Fisher Relation Using WISE Photometry

TL;DR

This paper develops the largest mid-infrared Tully-Fisher relation using WISE 3.4-micron data, providing a new tool for galaxy distance measurements and comparing it with near-infrared relations.

Contribution

It introduces a mid-infrared Tully-Fisher relation based on WISE data, expanding the available methods for galaxy distance estimation and analyzing its consistency with other infrared relations.

Findings

Largest mid-infrared TF relation constructed to date.

Good agreement between WISE TF and 2MTF K-band relations.

Some tension observed between WISE TF and preliminary 3.6-micron relation.

Abstract

We present a mid-infrared Tully-Fisher (TF) relation using photometry from the 3.4-micron W1 band of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite. The WISE TF relation is formed from 568 galaxies taken from the all-sky 2MASS Tully-Fisher (2MTF) galaxy catalog, spanning a range of environments including field, group, and cluster galaxies. This constitutes the largest mid-infrared TF relation constructed, to date. After applying a number of corrections to galaxy magnitudes and line widths, we measure a master TF relation given by M_corr = -22.24 - 10.05[log(W_corr) - 2.5], with an average dispersion of sigma_WISE = 0.686 magnitudes. There is some tension between WISE TF and a preliminary 3.6-micron relation, which has a shallower slope and almost no intrinsic dispersion. However, our results agree well with a more recent relation constructed from a large sample of cluster galaxies. We additionally compare WISE TF to the near-infrared 2MTF template relations, finding a good agreement between the TF parameters and total dispersions of WISE TF and the 2MTF K-band template. This fact, coupled with typical galaxy colors of (K - W1) ~ 0, suggests that these two bands are tracing similar stellar populations, including the older, centrally-located stars in the galactic bulge which can (for galaxies with a prominent bulge) dominate the light profile.