Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Kinematic and photometric data have been obtained for 97 elliptical galaxies in six rich clusters. These data show that ellipticals describe a plane in three dimensions which, when viewed edge-on, projects a smaller scatter than the Faber-Jackson relationship between luminosity and velocity dispersion σ. This plane is approximately given by L ∝ σ8/3Σe-3/5, where Σe is the surface brightness within the effective radius Ae. The authors present a new photometric parameter Dn, the diameter which encloses an integrated surface brightness Σ, that correlates as well with σ as any linear combination of L and Σ. It is shown that the Dn-σ relation can be used to find relative distances of ellipticals with rms errors of ⪉25% for a single galaxy and ⪉10% for rich clusters. A poorer correlation between the line strength indicator Mg2 and Dn provides an independent, though less accurate, distance indicator. The new σ and Mg2 distance estimators are used to determine an infall of the Local Group toward the Virgo Cluster.
Dressler et al. (Sun,) studied this question.