The Fundamental Plane Is Not a Plane: Warped Nature of the Fundamental Plane of Early-type Galaxies and Its Implication for Galaxy Formation
Yongmin Yoon, Changbom Park

TL;DR
This study reveals that the fundamental plane of early-type galaxies is a warped, curved surface rather than a true plane, with its shape and coefficients varying systematically with galaxy velocity dispersion and surface brightness.
Contribution
It demonstrates the warped, non-planar nature of the fundamental plane in ETGs and links this to dry merger effects influencing galaxy formation.
Findings
The FP is a curved surface, not a plane.
FP coefficients vary with galaxy velocity dispersion.
Dry mergers may cause the warped shape of the FP.
Abstract
Based on early-type galaxies (ETGs) in from Sloan Digital Sky Survey data, we show that the fundamental plane (FP) of ETGs is not a plane in the strict sense but is a curved surface with a twisted shape whose orthogonal direction to the surface is shifted as the central velocity dispersion () or mean surface brightness within the half-light radius () changes. When ETGs are divided into subsamples according to , the coefficient of of the FP increases, whereas the zero-point of the FP decreases at higher . Taking the band as an example, the coefficient of rises from to as increases from to km s. At the same time, the zero-point of the FP falls from to in the same range. The consistent picture on the curved nature of…
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Taxonomy
TopicsGalaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena · Astronomy and Astrophysical Research · Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing
