Mass-Luminosity Relation for Spiral Galaxies

Title:
The Mass-Luminosity Relation for Spiral Galaxies.
Authors:
Genkina, L. M.
Publication:
Soviet Astronomy, Vol. 14, p.732
Publication Date:
02/1971
Origin:
ADS
Bibliographic Code:
1971SvA....14..732G

Around the time this paper was published a fairly accurate mass-luminosity relation existed for both elliptical and lenticular galaxies. There were a few suggestions for the mass-luminosity relation of spiral galaxies, however they were different and had a quite large dispersion.

One of the suggestions was that of Holmberg who proposed that the color index be introduced as a supplementary parameter. The author determined that for statistical mass determinations the "mass-luminosity-color" relation had no essential advantage over the ordinary mass-luminosity relation. He then tried dividing spiral galaxies into subtypes and concluded that the introduction of new parameters did not appear to reduce the dispersion in the mass-luminosity relation.

Genkin and the author of this paper derived a mass-luminosity relation for spiral galaxies based on a catalog of masses compiled from data published prior to 1967. Radio astronomy became a popular way to determine the masses of galaxies at this time(right around the time Jocelyn Bell Burnell made her discovery). He notes that Vorontsov-Vel'yaminov pointed out a systematic disparity between the masses determined from radio and optical observations and advised to consider the data separately(the optical observations had two disadvantages).

At this point he goes on to show mass-luminosity relations using at first optical observations, and then only radio observations. He concludes that the closeness of the lines in these relations suggests that a mass-luminosity relation for spiral galaxies can be established within reasonable accuracy. Combining Burbidges' and Roberts' galaxies he found that the regression line is very close to the equation determined by Vorontsov-Vel'vaminov for spiral and irregular galaxies. However, in the 16 Type Ir I galaxies the author worked on, the slope was slightly smaller due to the exclusion of irregular galaxies.

I did not see any posts over this topic and figured I would choose one that was very early in the process of investigating spiral galaxies. It also shows the impact of improved methods such as radio vs. optical observations.