Calibration of the Tully-Fisher relation in the field

ANPE and Centre de Physique Théorique, CNRS, Luminy Case 907, F-13288 Marseille Cedex 9, France

Send offprint request to: S. Rauzy

Received: 3 May 1996
Accepted: 20 December 1996

Abstract

A new technique for calibrating slope and relative zero-point of Tully-Fisher like relations by using a sample of distant field galaxies is proposed. Based on a null-correlation approach (NCA), the technique is insensitive to the presence of selection effects on apparent magnitude m and on log line-width distance indicator p. This interesting property is used for discarding nearby galaxies of the observed sample. It is shown that such a subsampling allows in effect to attenuate biases on calibration parameters created by the presence of radial peculiar velocities.