A Unified Scaling Law in Spiral Galaxies

We investigate the origin of a unified scaling relation in spiral galaxies. Observed spiral galaxies are spread on a plane in the three-dimensional logarithmic space of luminosity L, radius R, and rotation velocity V. The plane is expressed as L~&parl0;VR&parr0;alpha in the I passband, where alpha is a constant. On the plane, observed galaxies are distributed in an elongated region which looks like the shape of a surfboard. The well-known scaling relations L-V (Tully-Fisher [TF] relation), V-R (also the TF relation), and R-L (Freeman's law) can be understood as oblique projections of the surfboard-like plane into two-dimensional spaces. This unified interpretation of the known scaling relations should be a clue to understand the physical origin of all the relations consistently. Furthermore, this interpretation can also explain why previous studies could not find any correlation between TF residuals and radius. In order to clarify the origin of this plane, we simulate formation and evolution of spiral galaxies with the N-body/smoothed particle hydrodynamics method, including cooling, star formation, and stellar feedback. Initial conditions are set to 14 isolated spheres with two free parameters, such as mass and angular momentum. The cold dark matter (h=0.5, Omega0=1) cosmology is considered as a test case. The simulations provide the following two conclusions: (1) The slope of the plane is well reproduced but the zero point is not. This zero-point discrepancy could be solved in a low-density (Omega0<1) and high-expansion (h>0.5) cosmology. (2) The surfboard-shaped plane can be explained by the control of galactic mass and angular momentum.