Concept

Tully fisher relation — where it appears

The correlation between a spiral galaxy's luminosity or mass and its rotation speed, close to a fourth-power law. Because the speed can be measured without knowing the distance, the relation turns a line width into an absolute brightness and so into a distance.

Named by 3 essays across one field — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

Tully–Fisher, from two assumptions and no fitting. 44 model galaxies spanning two and a half decades in luminosity, each built from a constant disc surface brightness of 380 L☉ per square parsec with 0.13 dex of scatter and a stellar mass-to-light ratio of 1.4 with 0.1 dex. Nothing about a luminosity–speed relation is put in: the scale length follows from the surface brightness, the mass from the light, and the speed from v² = GM/R. The construction makes L ∝ v⁴ exactly, so the true slope is −10.0 magnitudes per decade of speed. Least squares of magnitude on log speed returns -8.45, and the reverse regression -9.15: the scatter here is scatter in the speed at fixed luminosity, and error in the abscissa flattens a fitted slope, so neither fit returns the value the family was built with and the distance between them is the size of the effect. Residual scatter about the drawn line is 0.54 magnitudes. Observed slopes run from about −7.5 in blue light to −10 in the near infrared, where the mass-to-light ratio is steadiest — which is the same statement as the second assumption above.

A line width that is a distance

The width of a galaxy's hydrogen line depends on how fast it rotates, which depends on its mass, which is tied to its luminosity — so a quantity no distance enters gives an absolute brightness, and the distance follows from the brightness that is seen.

galaxies · Tully–Fisher

Five speeds from the same galaxies, and the relation each one gives. The exponent and the scatter of the baryonic Tully–Fisher relation fitted to the same 90 model galaxies with five different speeds, fitted as speed on mass. outer speed: exponent 3.98, scatter 0.080 dex in mass; peak speed: exponent 3.86, scatter 0.110 dex in mass; at 2.2 scale lengths: exponent 3.29, scatter 0.167 dex in mass; W50 ÷ 2: exponent 3.73, scatter 0.119 dex in mass; W20 ÷ 2: exponent 4.05, scatter 0.118 dex in mass. The galaxies were built with the relation in their outer halo speed, and the other four speeds each lose some of it: the ones read from the inner curve inherit how concentrated each galaxy's stars are, and the line widths add the turbulence of the gas, which matters most in the slowest galaxies.

The speed a line width stands in for

A galaxy does not have a rotation speed. It has a rotation curve, rising in the smallest galaxies and peaking early in the largest, and the Tully–Fisher relation is fitted to whichever single number is read off it. Build galaxies with the relation placed in their outer speed and read four other speeds from the same curves, and each gives a shallower or looser relation — which is why the choice of speed is a statement about where the relation lives.

galaxies · Tully–Fisher

How the scatter depends on how much dispersion is added to rotation. The scatter of the baryonic Tully–Fisher relation, in dex of mass, when the same 80 turbulent model discs are measured with S = √(K Vᵣₒₜ² + σ²), against the weight K given to the rotation, for rotation measured at 1 and 2.2 disc scale lengths. Measured at 1 scale length the scatter is smallest, 0.076 dex, at K = 0.55, and is 0.076 dex at K = 0.5; measured at 2.2 scale lengths the scatter is smallest, 0.077 dex, at K = 0.23, and is 0.134 dex at K = 0.5. For an exponential disc with constant dispersion the pressure correction is exactly K = one over twice the radius in scale lengths, so the best weight depends on where the rotation is measured. The widely used K = 0.5 is the value that makes a pure rotator and a pure isothermal sphere of the same mass agree; it is also the pressure correction for rotation measured at one scale length, and not at any other.

A disc that turns slower than its mass requires

The star-forming discs of ten billion years ago were not the thin, cold, orderly discs of today. Their gas moved randomly at tens of kilometres a second, and that motion is a pressure that holds up part of each disc, so it turns more slowly than its mass alone would require. Read those rotation speeds as if rotation did all the work and the Tully–Fisher relation tilts and scatters as if galaxies had evolved, when what differs is how much of their weight is carried by disorder.

galaxies · Tully–Fisher

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

The baryonic Tully–Fisher relation Dark matter Line width Mass-to-light ratio Rotation curve Velocity dispersion Asymmetric drift Distance indicator Freeman's law Inclination correction Malmquist bias Regression bias

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