A new extragalactic distance indicator based on the surface brightness profiles of dwarf elliptical galaxies

Abstract

We present evidence for a correlation between the curvatures of the surface brightness profiles of dwarf elliptical (dE) galaxies and their intrinsic luminosities (for objects with similar stellar populations), based on both Local Group (LG) and Fornax cluster (FC) galaxies. As profile shapes are invariant with distance, this correlation can be used as a distance indicator. A comparison between the LG and FC dEs yields a distance of 13.8+2.2-1.8 Mpc for the FC.