Stellar systems following the $R^{1/m}$ luminosity law. IV. The total energy and the central concentration of galaxies

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the total energy and central concentration of galaxies modeled by Sersic profiles, providing new formulas and evaluating the reliability of concentration indices as measures of galaxy structure.

Contribution

It introduces two independent methods to calculate the total energy of Sersic models and assesses the effectiveness of concentration indices in measuring galaxy concentration.

Findings

Two new formulas for total energy of Sersic models.

Spitzer concentration index is unreliable for intrinsic 3D concentration.

Third Galaxy Concentration index reliably measures intrinsic 3D concentration.

Abstract

We expand our previous analytical and numerical studies of the family of S\'ersic models, routinely used to describe early-type galaxies and the bulges of spiral galaxies. In particular, we focus on the total energy budget, an important dynamical property that has not been discussed in detail in previous works. We use two different methods to calculate the total energy for the S\'ersic model family, resulting in two independent expressions that can be used along the entire sequence of S\'ersic models. We use these expressions to investigate whether the Spitzer concentration index is a reliable measure for the intrinsic 3D concentration of galaxies, and we conclude that it is not a very useful measure for the central concentration. The popular Third Galaxy Concentration index, on the other hand, is shown to be a reliable measure for the intrinsic 3D concentration, even though it is based on the surface brightness distribution and not on the intrinsic 3D density.