Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-prelims-and-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2018/s26/3/d/solution

A useful empirical profile is the Sérsic law,
where is chosen so that encloses half the light. Classical bright elliptical galaxies are often approximated by the de Vaucouleurs's law case , with . Real ellipticals span a range of Sérsic indices, so is not universal.
Their classical luminosity-dispersion scaling is the Faber-Jackson relation,
as an approximate empirical trend with intrinsic scatter and sample-dependent slope. Combining size, surface brightness and dispersion gives the more informative fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies.

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