6 maggio 2003 - Dott. F. La Barbera
The Fundamental Plane of Early-Type Galaxies

ABSTRACTe-Main-Seque

Early--type galaxies (ETGs) are known to populate a two-dimensional manifold in the space of their observed quantities. This
Fundamental Plane (FP) is usually expressed by a correlation among the logarithm of the effective radius log r_e, the mean surface brightness <mu>_e within r_e, and the logarithm of the central velocity dispersion log sigma_0. I will discuss the main properties of the FP, with regard, in particular, to the so-called TILT of the relation with respect to the predictions of the Virial Theorem for an homologous family of galaxies with constant mass to light ratio. The most recent observational/theoretical results will be described.