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# Mass-to-light ratios from the fundamental plane of spiral galaxy disks

## 1 Introduction

Given the large observed range in the disk parameters of spiral galaxies, the tightness (and slope) of the Tully & Fisher (1977, hereafter TF) relation between absolute magnitude and the logarithm of the rotational velocity is a fundamental clue as to how these systems were constructed (Dalcanton, Spergel & Summers 1997; Mo, Mao & White 1998; Mo & Mao 2000; van den Bosch 2000; Koda, Sofue & Wada 2000). Not only does this relationship hold for the High Surface Brightness (HSB) spiral galaxies that typify the Hubble sequence, but also for the disk-dominated Low Surface Brightness (LSB) spiral galaxies (Zwaan et al. 1995). The universality of the TF relation for both (HSB) and LSB galaxies immediately tells us that for a given rotational velocity one has a constant galaxy luminosity, albeit within the scatter of the TF relation. This had been used to infer that, at any given constant luminosity, the mass-to-light ($`M/L`$) ratio must vary linearly with increasing disk scale-length $`h`$, or equivalently as $`I_0^{1/2}`$, where $`I_0`$ is the central disk surface brightness in intensity units (Zwaan et al. 1995). Despite popular misconception, how the $`M/L`$ ratio may vary between galaxies having different luminosities was not addressed and is the subject of the present analysis. This paper derives the mean dependency of the $`M/L`$ ratio on the scale-length and (central) surface brightness of a galaxy’s disk.

The issue above is tackled by replacing the magnitude term in the TF diagram with the central disk intensity and scale-length terms (recall, $`L_{\mathrm{disk}}=2\pi I_0h^2`$). This gives three fundamental variables: the rotational velocity of the disk ($`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$), the central disk surface brightness ($`\mu _0=2.5\mathrm{log}I_0`$ mag arcsec-2), and the disk scale-length ($`h`$). Just as the Faber-Jackson (1976) relation between absolute magnitude and velocity dispersion for Elliptical galaxies was supplemented through the construction of the ‘Fundamental Plane’ (Djorgovski & Davis 1987; Dressler et al. 1987; Faber et al. 1987), this study will explore the question of whether or not the use of three variables, rather than two are required for the treatment of spiral galaxy disks.

In recent years, numerous authors have addressed this question using different galaxy samples and different methods of data analysis (e.g., Willick et al. 1997). It should be noted that this question is approached here by treating all three variables equally (Feigelson & Babu 1992). It must therefore be understood that what is meant in the following text by ‘departure from the TF relation’ is a departure of the optimal ‘fundamental plane’ of spiral galaxy disks from the ‘TF plane’ when all three disk parameters are treated equally. Relations constructed for the purpose of galaxy distance determinations (see, for e.g., Triay, Lachieze-Rey & Rauzy 1994), where, typically, the residuals of only one variable about some relation are minimised are different; the results of such studies cannot be readily compared with the current investigation. Consequently, a number of such published data sets are reanalysed here in a consistent fashion. The tilt to the optimal ‘fundamental plane’ of spiral galaxy disks is subsequently used to infer the mass-to-light ratio as a function of disk scale-length and surface brightness.

Section 2 introduces the field galaxy samples that have been used, and the techniques employed to obtain their disk parameters. Section 3 describes the two-dimensional plane which is used to represent the location of galaxy disks in the three-dimensional space of observables, and describes how to relate this plane to the $`M/L`$ ratio. The results and analysis of fitting such a plane to the data sample in hand is presented in section 4. The same method of analysis is then applied to various literature data samples, and extended to longer wavelengths through the study of a homogeneous sample of Cluster spiral galaxies for which $`B,R,I`$, and $`K^{}`$ data is available. Lastly, a brief inspection of the $`M/L`$ ratio dependency on disk colour is performed. The main results from this study are given in Section 6.

## 2 Photometric and spectroscopic data

Three photometric samples have been compiled, containing galaxy profiles in both $`B`$\- and $`R`$-bands. All these galaxies were then structurally modelled using the same algorithm. In order to cover a large range of disk parameters, the well-defined sample of morphologically undisturbed HSB galaxies from de Jong & van der Kruit (1994) and de Jong (1996) was used together with two large samples of LSB galaxies for which CCD data are available. The first of which is the sample of 21 disk-dominated LSB spiral galaxies from de Blok et al. (1995). The second is the sample of 21 bulge-dominated LSB spiral galaxies from Beijersbergen, de Blok & van der Hulst (1999).

The selection criteria are discussed at length in each paper, and they have been previously summarised in Graham & de Blok (2001). Briefly, de Jong & van der Kruit (1994) constructed a statistically complete, diameter- and volume-limited sample of 86 HSB disk galaxies having a red minor-to-major ratio greater than 0.625 (i.e. inclinations less than $``$50o), and a red major-axis $``$2.0′. Larger and brighter disk galaxies are of course over-represented in such a sample as they can be detected at greater distances; equivalently, small faint disks will be under-represented. Following McGaugh & Blok’s (1998) study of LSB galaxies and the TF relation, the current objective is simply to expand the baseline of observable parameters which are fed into such an analysis. This HSB sample is therefore supplemented here with two LSB galaxy samples; however, as it turns out, the main conclusions from this study are supported by the analysis of the HSB data alone.

The first LSB sample is from de Blok et al. (1995), consisting of late-type LSB galaxies from van der Hulst et al. (1993) and the lists by Schombert & Bothun (1988) and Schombert et al (1992). De Blok et al. randomly selected a sub-set of galaxies with inclinations less than 60o, central surface brightnesses fainter than 23 B-mag arcsec-2, and having single-dish HI observations available. The LSB sample from Beijersbergen et al. (1999) is a random selection of ‘bulge-dominated’ LSB disk galaxies imaged in the ESO-LV catalog (Lauberts & Valentijn 1989). Galaxies were selected if they had: inclinations less than 50o, diameters of the 26 B-mag arcsec-2 isophote greater than 1$`\mathrm{}`$ and smaller than 3$`\mathrm{}`$ (chip size limitation), and a surface brightness of the disk at the half-light radii fainter than 23.8 B-mag arcsec-2. The combined sample of HSB and LSB galaxies is not complete in any volume-limited sense, but does span more than 4 mag arcsec-2 in central disk surface brightness.

Every profile has been modelled by simultaneously fitting a seeing-convolved Sérsic (1968) $`r^{1/n}`$ bulge and a seeing-convolved exponential disk. Uncertainty in the relative sky-background level can be a significant source of error when determining the disk parameters; consequently, the parameters for the LSB galaxies ($``$ 1/3 of the final sample) are less secure than those for the HSB galaxies. The LSB galaxies have typical errors of $``$20 per cent in their disk scale-length determinations, while the HSB galaxies generally have errors of less than 10 per cent (and typically 7 per cent). The profile derived central surface brightness measurements are accurate to typically 0.1 mag arcsec-2 for all galaxy types. They have also all been homogeneously corrected for: Galactic extinction (Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis 1998), $`K`$-correction (using the tables of Poggianti 1997), $`(1`$$`+`$$`z)^4`$ redshift dimming, and inclination corrected following the prescription Tully & Verheijen (1997) derived for the Ursa Major galaxy Cluster.

The inclination of each galaxy (determined from the $`R`$-band images) have been taken from their respective papers, with the exception that the inclinations given in de Blok, McGaugh & van der Hulst (1996) were used for the disk-dominated LSB galaxy sample. The galaxies have low to intermediate inclinations ($`i`$$`<`$$`60^{}`$). On the one hand, this is good because it means that the required surface brightness inclination corrections (to a face-on orientation) are small. Failing to account for such internal extinction can result in substantial errors – these can be greater than 2 mag for highly inclined disks. On the other hand, it means that the inclination corrections (to an edge-on orientation) for the rotational velocity terms will be large.

The 21 cm velocity data has come from a number of sources. The linewidth at 20 per cent of the peak HI intensity, denoted by $`W_{20}`$ and usually measured to an accuracy of a few percent, has been used in all cases. Following Zwaan et al. (1995), these values were corrected for both inclination and random motion effects, as detailed in Tully & Fouqué (1985), to give the rotational velocity $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$. Dynamical data for the disk-dominated LSB galaxy sample has come from de Blok et al. (1996) and van der Hulst et al. (1993), and is thoroughly described in these papers. The data for the bulge-dominated LSB galaxies has come from de Blok (2001, priv. comm.) and was reduced in the same way as the disk-dominated sample of LSB galaxies. Measurements of $`W_{20}`$ for the HSB galaxy sample have come from either the HI catalog of Huchtmeier (2000) or the database of LEDA. Uncertainties in the true inclination of each disk (due to possible intrinsic disk elongation) is likely to be the dominant source of error in the rotational velocity measurements and will contribute to scatter in the following diagrams. Adding an error estimate of 10 to every galaxies photometrically derived inclination angle resulted in a mean change of 0.09 dex in the derived rotational velocities. If more accurate inclinations derived from kinematical data (see, e.g., Franx & de Zeeuw 1992; Andersen et al. 2001) were available, one could expect the scatter in the following relations to be reduced. Similarly, rotation curve asymmetries have not been dealt with (Richter & Sancisi 1994; Haynes et al. 1994; Matthews & Gallagher 2002).

Considering galaxies with both photometric and kinematic data left a sample of 65 HSB and 30 LSB galaxies in the $`B`$-band, and 64 HSB and 31 LSB galaxies in the $`R`$-band (see Table 1). The galaxy F564-v3, the closest galaxy in the sample of disk-dominated LSB galaxies – at a distance of only 6 Mpc – is the only galaxy excluded at this point due to the uncertainty on its true distance111Inclusion of F564-v3 in the subsequent analysis reveals that it lies far from the relation defined by the other 94 galaxies in the sample; suggesting its distance is not well indicated by its redshift..

Redshifts for ESO-LV 0350110 and ESO-LV 0050050, from the bulge-dominated sample of LSB galaxies, were obtained from the Parkes telescope HIPASS database (Barnes et al. 2001). Redshifts for the other galaxies have been taken from the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED). The heliocentric redshifts were uniformly corrected for Galactic rotation, Virgo-infall, infall toward the ‘Great Attractor’, and the ‘local anomaly’ using the model from Burstein et al. (1989). The disk scale-lengths were then converted from arcseconds to kpc using a Hubble constant $`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1.

In passing, it is noted that the sample of galaxies has been taken from the field, rather than from a single cluster, and so one can expect to have a greater degree of scatter in the relationship between $`\mathrm{log}v`$, $`\mu _0`$, and $`\mathrm{log}h`$ than might otherwise be attained. This is because peculiar velocity flows leading to distance errors will introduce errors into the estimates of the scale-lengths. Additionally, like most studies to date, $`W_{20}`$ has been used to derive $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ rather than using $`v_{max}`$ or $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$ which are not available. It is acknowledged that the available kinematic data may therefore not be the optimal estimate to the rotational velocity, although McGaugh & de Blok (1998) state that $`W_{20}`$ gives a good approximation to $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$.

## 3 The relation between $`\mathrm{log}v`$, $`\mu _0`$ and $`\mathrm{log}h`$, and implications for the $`M/L`$ ratio

From the balance of forces between centripetal acceleration and gravity, one has the dynamical mass $`M(r)=v^2r/G`$, where $`G`$ is the gravitational constant. Combining the previous expressions for $`M`$ and $`L`$ (section 1) gives

$$\frac{M}{L}\frac{v^2r}{I_0h^2},$$
(1)
where $`M`$ and $`v`$ are measured at the same radius $`r`$. A common practice is to take $`r`$ as some multiple of $`h`$ (e.g. 4$`h`$, McGaugh & de Blok 1998) and assume the estimate of $`v`$ derived from $`W_{20}`$ is a good estimate of not only $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$ (McGaugh et al. 2000) but also of the rotational velocity at 4$`h`$. Doing this, one arrives at the virial theorem

$$v^2(M/L)I_0h.$$
(2)
Next, from the measured data of many galaxies, one can construct – given it exists – the ‘plane’

$$vI_0^xh^y,$$
(3)
where $`x`$ and $`y`$ are the optimal exponents dictating the relationship between the disk’s structural and dynamical terms. Combining equations 2 and 3 to eliminate the velocity term, one quickly arrives at the relation

$$2.5\mathrm{log}\frac{M}{L}(2x1)\mu _02.5(2y1)\mathrm{log}h.$$
(4)
Subsequently, lines of constant $`M/L`$ will have a slope of $`2.5(2y`$$``$$`1)/(2x`$$``$$`1)`$ in the $`\mu _0`$$`\mathrm{log}h`$ diagram (e.g. Graham & de Blok 2001). One can similarly derive that lines of constant velocity have a slope of $`2.5y/x`$.

If the value of $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ derived from $`W_{20}`$, or $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$, is an appropriate velocity to use at some constant multiple of $`h`$ (e.g. 4$`h`$), and galaxy disks are virialised, then the $`M/L`$ ratio derived in equation 4 should be proportional to the $`M/L`$ ratio derived from

$$M/L_{4h}v^24h/(I_0h^2).$$
(5)
I shall refer to this as the ‘kinematical’ or ’dynamical’ mass-to-light ratio, and that in equation 4 as the ‘photometric’ mass-to-light ratio.

What $`M/L`$ ratio does one really want to measure? Lets start by looking at the different ways which can be used to measure $`L`$. The flux within some limiting isophotal radius is clearly inappropriate. This is strikingly evident in the case of LSB galaxies whose central surface brightness values may be fainter than the limiting isophotes used to measure the HSB galaxies. In such an instance, the flux measurement of the LSB galaxy would be zero. The use of the outer most observed radius is also not ideal because it depends on observational details such as exposure times, telescope aperture, and what signal-to-noise one is willing to accept; that is, the outer most observed radius is not an intrinsic quantity of a galaxy. Another way to estimate the luminosity of galaxies is to measure their flux within some fixed aperture size, say 20 kpc. Although this is indeed a standard and consistent approach, it is again not a favourable one. The reason is because, depending on $`\mu _0`$ and $`h`$, this metric will measure a different fraction of the total galaxy luminosity. Given that exponential disks are structurally homologous, scaling with the central intensity and scale-length, one can, and indeed should, use these quantities to measure the same fraction of disk light for all galaxies (for example, 91 per cent of the light from an exponential profile which extends to infinity is contained within the inner four scale-lengths; 99.1 per cent within the inner 4 effective radii). Therefore, some constant multiple of $`I_0h^2`$ will represent the same fraction of the total extrapolated disk light for all disks. Disk truncation in real galaxies at 4 or more scale-lengths will introduce less than a 10 per cent error to this approach.

What about the estimate for the mass $`M`$? One could also measure the galaxy mass within 20 kpc, or within a fixed number of disk scale-lengths. But is this really what we want? If the total (stars plus gas plus dark matter) mass profile does not scale with the luminous disk scale-length, then estimates for the galaxy mass within a fixed number of disk scale-lengths will not correspond to equal fractions of the mass distribution. Therefore, a more fundamental quantity might be the mass within some constant multiple of the core-radii of the total mass profile, defined to be the radius where the density has dropped by a factor of two from its central value. If the mass profiles are homologous, then the mass would simply scale with some measure of velocity and some measure of radius. The presence of the flat rotation curves suggests a velocity scale we can use, namely $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$. This then leaves the radial scale-size to be determined, and one typically assumes that the scale-size ‘$`a`$’ of the total mass profile, scales with the disk scale-length (McGaugh & de Blok 1998)222Alternative scales could be the velocity $`v_0`$ at the radius $`r_0`$ from the density profiles used in Kravtsov et al. (1998).. If they do not, then one should add the term $`2.5\mathrm{log}(a/h)`$ to the right hand side of equation 4.

Whether or not galaxy rotation curves are homologous appears to be something of an unresolved question (van den Bosch et al. 2000). Swaters, Madore & Trewhella (2000; their figure 4) present Hα rotation curves for a small sample of LSB and HSB galaxies which appear to overlay each other exactly (once normalised with $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$ and $`h`$). This contradicts the work of de Blok & McGaugh (1997) and suggests that $`a/h`$ may be constant. Most recently, fitting pseudo-isothermal mass models (in preference to Navarro, Frenk & White (1996) CDM halos), de Blok, McGaugh & Rubin (2001; their figure 10) studied a sample of well-resolved LSB galaxy rotation curves and found no appreciable evidence for any correlation between $`a/h`$ and the maximum rotational velocity, or equivalently luminosity.

In what follows, the additional term $`a/h`$ will be ignored and the kinematical $`M/L`$ ratio shall be that within 4 scale-lengths, as defined in equation 5.

If the TF relation is indeed the optimal representation of disk galaxies, then one must find from equation 3 that $`y`$$`=`$$`2x`$ and $`vL^x`$. The exact slope of the TF relation is important because it tells us the $`M/L`$ dependency on the other galaxy parameters. For example, if $`Lv^2`$ ($`x`$$`=`$0.5, $`y`$$`=`$1.0) then $`(M/L)h`$ and is independent of surface brightness.333This result actually holds for any value of $`y`$ as long as $`x`$$`=`$0.5. However, if $`Lv^4`$ ($`x`$$`=`$0.25, $`y`$$`=`$0.5) then $`(M/L)1/\sqrt{I_0}`$, independent of galaxy size.

In the original paper of Tully & Fisher (1977), they found a slope of 2.5$`\pm `$0.3 using photographic magnitudes and the velocity line width at 20 per cent of the maximum intensity. More recently, Zwaan et al. (1995) obtained a $`B`$-band slope of 2.6, implying that $`\mathrm{log}(M/L_B)(0.09\mu _0+0.54\mathrm{log}h)`$444n.b. Along lines of constant luminosity in the $`\mu _0`$$`\mathrm{log}h`$ diagram, if $`\mathrm{log}(M/L)0.1\mu _0+0.5\mathrm{log}h`$ then it implies that both $`\mu _0`$ and $`\mathrm{log}h`$ contribute equally to changes in $`M/L`$. This result is not at odds with the conclusion of Zwaan et al. (1995) that $`M/LI_0^{1/2}`$, because their statement only holds valid, as they state, for galaxies of a fixed/constant luminosity. This point has, however, not always been appreciated in the literature.

Let us consider the case where $`Lv^2`$ and $`\mathrm{log}(M/L)\mathrm{log}h`$, independent of $`\mu _0`$. If one was to sample different galaxies having the same $`h`$ but different $`\mu _0`$, $`\mathrm{log}(M/L)`$ would show no dependency at all on $`\mu _0`$. If one was to then sample a different set of galaxies having equal luminosity, but with different $`\mu _0`$ and $`h`$, a plot of $`\mathrm{log}(M/L)`$ versus $`\mu _0`$ would of course show a strong correlation This is because of the relation between $`\mu _0`$ and h at constant $`L`$. One must therefore be careful of misleading results of this kind. Completely independently of any observational results, one can see this degeneracy at constant $`L`$ by dividing the relation $`Mv^2h`$ by $`L`$ to give $`(M/L)v^2h/L`$. If the TF relation holds true with any slope at all, then one has that $`(M/L)h`$ for any fixed $`L`$. Of course, for different values of $`L`$ the constant of proportionality between $`M/L`$ and $`h`$ is different (unless $`Lv^2`$) and so one cannot use this expression to compare the $`M/L`$ ratios between galaxies of different luminosity, only between galaxies of the same luminosity. Alternatively, Zwaan et al. (1995) showed that $`I_0(M/L)^2`$ is constant at any fixed linewidth (or, from the TF relation, any fixed luminosity); therefore, $`(M/L)1/\sqrt{I_0}`$. However, if $`I_0h^2`$ is constant, one again has that $`(M/L)h`$. Identically, one cannot use the relation $`(M/L)1/\sqrt{I_0}`$ to compare the $`M/L`$ ratio of galaxies at different luminosities (unless $`Lv^4`$). Only for galaxies having the same fixed luminosity can these expressions be used to indicate differences in the $`M/L`$ ratio. How the $`M/L`$ ratio of galaxies with different luminosities varies (simultaneously) with scale-length and the central disk intensity is what this study shall investigate.

## 4 Data analysis and results

A Principle Component Analysis was performed on the data, revealing that 95 per cent ($`B`$-band) and 94 per cent ($`R`$-band) of the variance within the 3-dimensional space of variables ($`\mu _0`$, $`\mathrm{log}h`$, $`\mathrm{log}v`$) resides within a two-dimensional plane555The principle eigenvector accounted for 49 per cent ($`B`$-band) and 55 per cent ($`R`$-band) of the variance.. From this it is concluded that it is indeed appropriate to represent the data with a two-dimensional plane. In so doing, five galaxies (3 LSB and 2 HSB) from the final sample of 94 have been identified as potential outliers – one in particular (ESO-LV 1220040). The following analysis has therefore been performed excluding ESO-LV 1220040, and then performed again excluding all five galaxies, which, in a number of tests, consistently lied away from the main data. These points are shown in Figure 1 – identified as lying more than a factor of 2 in $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ from the best-fitting line to the data sample. Two666An additional 10 galaxies have inclinations $`<`$25, but all closely follow the relation defined by the other galaxies. of these galaxies have an inclination of $``$25, and another is the closest galaxy from the HSB sample – having a redshift of only 800 km s-1. The above percentages increased by 1 per cent, to 96 per cent ($`B`$-band) and 95 per cent ($`R`$-band), when all five outlying data points were excluded.

To construct the best-fitting plane, a three-dimensional bisector method of linear-regression was used (Graham & Colless 1997). The advantages and applicability in treating all the variables equally in this manner, as opposed to a simple linear regression of one variable on the others, is elucidated in Isobe et al. (1990) and Feigelson & Babu (1992). Basically, one wants to treat all the data/variables in an equivalent manner when performing a comparison with theory. A simple ordinary linear regression (OLS) of one variable on the other two variables would not achieve this goal, and would produce different results depending on which variable one regressed upon the others. Of those methods which do provide a symmetrical treatment of the data, the bisector method provides the smallest variance, or uncertainty, to the estimated values of the fitted plane.

Performing this regression, the exponents $`x`$ and $`y`$ from equation 3 were computed to be 0.53$`\pm `$0.05 and 0.79$`\pm `$0.09 ($`B`$-band) and 0.45$`\pm `$0.04 and 0.71$`\pm `$0.09 ($`R`$-band). Therefore, $`(M/L_B)I_0^{0.06\pm 0.10}h^{0.58\pm 0.18}`$ ($`B`$-band) and $`(M/L_R)I_0^{0.10\pm 0.08}h^{0.42\pm 0.18}`$ ($`R`$-band). Lines of constant velocity subsequently have a slope of $`2.5y/x=3.7`$$`\pm `$0.5 ($`B`$-band) and 3.9$`\pm `$0.6 ($`R`$-band) in the $`\mu _0`$$`\mathrm{log}h`$ diagram. A plot of $`\mathrm{log}v`$ against $`\mathrm{log}(I_0^xh^y)`$ does, as one would hope, have a slope of 1. This figure is not presented here because it is attained by simply dividing the $`x`$-axis in Figure 1 by the slope of that data. Therefore, a scaled version of such a plot is already displayed. Both of the TF relations shown in Figure 3 (obtained by setting the ‘mixing’ value $`bx/(2.5y)=0.2`$) have a vertical scatter of 0.14 dex, slightly greater than the value 0.13 dex (c.f. 0.65 mag, Kannappan, Fabricant & Franx 2002) obtained in Figure 1.

The above analysis was repeated, removing those additional four data points marked as outliers in Figure 1. This time $`x`$$`=`$0.50$`\pm `$0.05 and $`y`$$`=`$0.77$`\pm `$0.07 ($`B`$-band), and $`x`$$`=`$0.43$`\pm `$0.04 and $`y`$$`=`$0.69$`\pm `$0.07 ($`R`$-band). Here, $`(M/L_B)I_0^{0.00\pm 0.10}h^{0.54\pm 0.14}`$ ($`B`$-band) and $`(M/L_R)I_0^{0.14\pm 0.08}h^{0.38\pm 0.14}`$ ($`R`$-band), and lines of constant velocity have a slope of 3.9$`\pm `$0.5 ($`B`$-band) and 4.0$`\pm `$0.6 ($`R`$-band) in the $`\mu _0`$$`\mathrm{log}h`$ diagram. At least in the $`B`$-band, the data reveal that the $`M/L`$ ratio is in fact largely independent of surface brightness, and roughly varies as $`\sqrt{h}`$. Lower surface brightness does not necessarily imply a higher $`M/L`$ ratio. The residuals are shown not to correlate with either ($`BR`$) colour (Figure 5), or galaxy ellipticity, and hence no obvious additional dependency on inclination is expected. Studies which explore the density profiles of dark matter halos associated with LSB galaxies should perhaps reconsider the assumption that all of these systems are dark matter dominated.

Differences in the mass-to-light ratios estimated from equation 4 and equation 5 may signify that galaxies are either not virialised or that the mass profiles do not scale simply with the luminous exponential disk scale-length (section 3). The logarithm of the ratio of the ‘kinematic’ and ‘photometric’ mass-to-light ratios has been plotted against the central disk surface brightness, the logarithm of the luminous disk scale-length, and the logarithm of the disk luminosity in Figure 7. No strong correlations exist, although a weak correlation (Pearson’s $`r=0.4`$) with absolute magnitude does exist at the 99.97 per cent confidence level. This may be indicating that the ratio of the mass profile scale-size ($`a`$) to the ($`B`$-band) luminous disk scale-length ($`h`$) may correlate weakly with luminosity, in the sense that $`a/h`$ decreases with increasing disk luminosity.

One way to test if the above trend is true would be from an analysis of actual rotation curves. If rotation curves are homologous, scaling in amplitude with $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$ and radially with disk scale-length $`h`$, then they should all overlap each other once normalised in this way. However, because rotation curves can rise slowly as they approach $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$ (see, for e.g., Rubin et al. 1985), it is difficult to quantify at exactly which radius $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$ is reached. It can therefore be difficult to gauge if rotation curves are homologous. It is proposed here that one might be able to use the radius where the velocity equals one-half of $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$ as a measure of the radial scale for the velocity profile. Due to the relative steepness of rotation curves around this value (after they have been scaled with the disk scale-length), errors in $`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$ should have a reduced effect on estimates of this radius. A plot of this radius, in units of disk scale-length, against disk luminosity may reveal if the assumption that the mass profiles scale with the luminous disk profiles is valid, or if the slight correlation found above is real.

### 4.1 Further analysis

A range of methods have been used in the literature for the task of constructing a two-dimensional plane to three-dimensional data. Given the lack of universal agreement as to which is the best approach to take, a second (different) approach is employed here. Following Djorgovski & Davis (1987), the ‘mixing’ value $`b`$ that gave the highest linear correlation coefficient between $`\mathrm{log}v`$ and $`(\mathrm{log}h+b\mu _0)`$ was computed. A line of regression to this two-parameter data set (once the value of $`b`$ had been determined) was then fitted; in fact, six different lines of regression were fitted using the program SLOPES from Feigelson & Babu (1992). The results are given in Table 2, and were obtained excluding the 1 outlying data point (ESO-LV 1220040). Through a bootstrap resampling of the data an estimate for the error on $`b`$ was obtained and is also given in Table 2. When all five outlying data points were excluded, $`b`$$`=`$$`0.256\pm 0.030`$ ($`B`$-band) and $`b`$$`=`$$`0.265\pm 0.036`$ ($`R`$-band), in agreement with the results obtained in Table 2. Again, the analysis and data suggests that in the $`B`$-band $`x0.5`$ and the $`M/L_B`$ ratio is largely independent of surface brightness. Once more, only mild inconsistencies with the TF expectation value of $`b=0.2`$ were found using this alternative technique to compute the best-fitting plane. Within the 2$`\sigma `$ confidence interval, the optimal values of $`b`$ are consistent with the value -0.20. Forcing the value of $`b`$ to equal -0.20 introduced a slight dependency of $`M/L`$ on the surface brightness term – as evidenced by the departure of $`x`$ from the value 0.5 in Table 2. The extent of this effect was greater in the redder passband.

A significant fraction (1/2) of the LSB galaxies have rotational velocity estimates less than 100 km s-1. In order to obtain an estimate as to how the LSB galaxies may be influencing the above results, the analysis was repeated using the HSB galaxy sample on their own, and then again using only the LSB galaxy sample. Excluding the outliers identified in Figure 1, the three-dimensional bisector method of regression for the HSB galaxy sample ($`N=62,61`$) gave $`vI_0^{0.60\pm 0.12}h^{0.82\pm 0.12}`$ ($`B`$-band) and $`vI_0^{0.50\pm 0.09}h^{0.66\pm 0.09}`$ ($`R`$-band).777From the second method of analysis, the ‘mixing’ values were determined to be $`b`$$`=`$0.244$`\pm `$0.044 ($`B`$-band) and $`b`$$`=`$0.260$`\pm `$0.050 ($`R`$-band). One can therefore conclude that the LSB galaxies are not responsible for the observed, albeit slight, departures from the TF relation, nor are they biasing the analysis to produce values of $`x`$ as high as 0.5 and thereby causing the $`M/L`$ ratio to appear largely independent of surface brightness. The regression analysis of the LSB galaxy sample ($`N=25,27`$) gave $`vI_0^{0.58\pm 0.17}h^{0.92\pm 0.15}`$ ($`B`$-band) and $`vI_0^{0.46\pm 0.17}h^{0.79\pm 0.18}`$ ($`R`$-band), fully consistent with the result from the HSB galaxy sample. The reason for the slightly larger exponents when the HSB and the LSB galaxies are considered on their own, as opposed to taken together, can be easily understood by looking at the distribution of LSB and HSB galaxies in Figure 1. This slight difference in slopes also illustrates how a selection bias against LSB galaxies would operate; removing the left half of the data in Figure 1 results in an increased slope in the best-fit to the remaining data (see, e.g., Lynden-Bell et al. 1988, Appendix B).

A remaining point of concern is that there may be relatively important distance errors for some of the more nearby galaxies due to streaming motions above the smooth Hubble flow. To address this concern, the regression analysis has been repeated excluding the 34 galaxies888Of the 5 galaxies identified previously as ‘outliers’ in Figure 1, only two of these are within this volume. within 3,000 km s-1. The results obtained from the regression analysis of this data are fully consistent with the results from the larger galaxy sample, with $`vI_0^{0.53\pm 0.06}h^{0.85\pm 0.12}`$ ($`B`$-band) and $`vI_0^{0.45\pm 0.05}h^{0.75\pm 0.13}`$ ($`R`$-band). Additionally, correction for Virgo-infall alone, using the 220-model of Kraan-Korteweg (1986), gave entirely consistent results with those obtained using the more detailed velocity flow model of Burstein et al. (1989).

A meaningful comparison of the best-fitting planes for the early-type and late-type ($`>`$Sc) spiral galaxies in the present data set is not possible because the uncertainty on the exponents is in general too great. What we can, however, conclude at this point is that in the $`B`$-band, the near independency of $`M/L_B`$ on surface brightness holds when the HSB galaxies are taken on their own, when the HSB and LSB galaxies are taken together, and when one constrains the ‘mixing’ value $`b`$ to -0.2 in order to mimic the TF relation. Although, it is noted that this situation is expected to change in the redder passbands, where the slope of the TF relation is steeper (see section 5).

### 4.2 Does $`M/L_B`$ correlate with $`\mu _{0,B}`$?

Two points can be made regarding previous $`B`$-band studies which have claimed, and even plotted, a trend between mass-to-light ratio and central disk surface brightness. The first point is addressed by plotting the present data. Figure 8a shows the ‘kinematical’ $`M/L_B`$ ratio (equation 5) versus the central $`B`$-band disk surface brightness $`\mu _{0,B}`$. One can see that although an upper envelope appears to exist, the current data present no strong correlation between $`M/L_B`$ and $`\mu _{0,B}`$. Furthermore, the upper envelope is merely a reflection of the upper (bright) envelope in the $`\mu _0`$$`\mathrm{log}h`$ diagram (Graham 2001b; Graham & de Blok 2001) which is due to the absence of large scale-length galaxies with bright disks. Panel b) in Figure 8 displays the data from Table 1 of McGaugh & de Blok (1998). Their tabulated circular velocities, $`B`$-band scale-lengths and central disk surface brightnesses were used to compute the kinematical mass-to-light ratio within four scalelengths. This was done in exactly the same way as for panel a) and is in fact the method claimed to have been used in McGaugh & de Blok (1998). Strangely, their tabulated $`M/L`$ ratios are different to the values derived from these basic parameters, and consequently their Figure 4b looks different to Figure 8b shown here. Although the upper envelope is common between panels a) and b), the lower-left portions differ significantly.

The disk-dominated LSB galaxies from de Blok et al. (1995) have roughly the same scale-lengths as normal HSB spiral galaxies – their median $`B`$-band scale-length is 4.3 kpc ($`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1; de Blok et al. 1995). The bulge-dominated LSB galaxies from Beijersbergen et al. (1999) have a larger median $`B`$-band disk scale-length of 12.6 kpc (Beijersbergen et al. 1999). Taking 8.45 kpc (=\[12.6+4.3\]/2) to represent some kind of division between the large and small (or rather, large and normal) sized LSB galaxies, panel c) shows the results after selecting against (i.e. excluding) those disks with central surface brightnesses more than one mag fainter than the canonical Freeman (1970) value of 21.65 $`B`$-mag and with scale-lengths less than 8.45 kpc. These galaxies should roughly have, on average, the same scale-lengths as the HSB galaxy sample, but fainter surface brightnesses. If the $`M/L`$ ratio is independent of surface brightness, then we should find that we have removed those LSB galaxies with similar $`M/L`$ ratios as the HSB galaxies - which indeed is what we do find. Panel d) shows the current HSB galaxy sample (excluding the three disks with $`\mu _0`$ fainter than 23.0 $`B`$-mag arcsec-2) together with those LSB galaxies in common with McGaugh & de Blok (1998). From this restricted sample, a somewhat similar correlation between $`M/L_B`$ and $`\mu _{0,B}`$ to that present in the data of McGaugh & de Blok (1998) appears. The dependence of the $`B`$-band mass-to-light ratio on the central disk surface brightness can therefore arise from ones sample selection, even with a range of disk luminosities

McGaugh & de Blok (1998) excluded a number of LSB galaxies for a variety of different reasons. All of the LSB galaxies in common with both studies but excluded by McGaugh & de Blok (1998) ($`N=7`$) reside very close to the mean relation defined by the other galaxies in Figure 1. That is, they do not appear to be outliers.

The second point which should however be mentioned is that in contradiction with most $`B`$-band TF studies, the small sample of McGaugh & de Blok (1998) apparently has a TF slope of almost 4, i.e. $`x=0.25`$ (their Figure 1). In this case, as explained in Section 3, one does expect to find a strong correlation between $`M/L`$ and $`\mu _0`$, as these authors did for their galaxy sample.

## 5 Literature comparisons

A somewhat similar three-dimensional analysis of 511 HSB Spiral (and Irregular) galaxies having types Sa through Im has been performed by Burstein et al. (1997) in the $`B`$-band. While they also used rotational velocity estimates from $`W_{20}`$ measurements, the nature of their photometric data is different to that used here. Using the RC3 (de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991) tables of $`B`$-band circular effective aperture size and mean enclosed surface brightness, Burstein et al. (1997) used the axial-ratio-based statistical relationships in the RC3 to derive the mean effective surface brightness $`<`$$`\mu `$$`>`$$`{}_{e}{}^{}=2.5\mathrm{log}`$$`<`$$`I_e`$$`>`$ within the effective radius $`r_e`$. They then corrected $`<`$$`\mu `$$`>`$e for Galactic extinction following Burstein & Heiles (1982) and for internal extinction using the correction 1.5$`\mathrm{log}(b/a)`$. Recognizing errors of more than 0.1 dex in their photometric parameters, Burstein et al. (1997) chose not to apply the small $`(1+z)^4`$ correction or any $`K`$-correction term. Their investigation effectively used the total (bulge + disk) galaxy half-light radius and mean surface brightness within this radius. Depending on the contribution of light from the bulge, varying fractions of disk scale-length, and hence the disks themselves, were consequently sampled in their analysis. The present investigation differs as it has used one complete disk scale-length and the central disk surface brightness; an approach, it should be noted, which effectively regards the bulge matter as dark matter - the luminous flux from the bulge is ignored, while the presence of the bulge permeates into the analysis through the rotational velocity of the disk.

If the relative contribution from the bulge light999$`B/D`$ ratios for much of the present galaxy sample have already been presented in Graham (2001a,b) and Graham & de Blok (2001). is small enough that it can be neglected and the galaxy treated as simply an exponential disk, then the use of $`r_e`$ and $`<`$$`\mu `$$`>`$e (or $`\mu _e`$, the surface brightness at $`r_e`$) should yield similar results as the use of $`h`$ and $`\mu _0`$. This is because $`r_e=1.67h`$ and $`<`$$`\mu `$$`>`$$`{}_{e}{}^{}=\mu _0+1.12`$ ($`\mu _e=\mu _0+1.82`$) for an exponential disk. To investigate the influence of the bulge, and perform a somewhat more direct comparison with Burstein et al. (1997), the half-light radius and the surface brightness at this radius have been derived for the present galaxy sample and the fundamental plane recomputed using these values. The differences between the half-light radius of the disk (=1.67$`h`$) and the half-light radius of the galaxy ($`r_e`$), and the surface brightness of the disk at 1.67$`h`$ and of the galaxy at $`r_e`$ are shown in Figure 9. With the exception of a few galaxies101010These galaxies are not the outliers identified in Figure 1. having very prominent bulges within their disk half-light radius, the disk and galaxy half-light radius usually varied by less than 20 per cent, and the surface brightness terms by less than $``$0.4 mag arcsec-2. The optimal fundamental plane constructed using $`r_e`$ and $`\mu _e`$ for the full sample (excluding the previously mentioned outliers) is $`vI_e^{0.53\pm 0.05}r_e^{0.79\pm 0.09}`$ ($`B`$-band). For the HSB sample one finds $`vI_e^{0.61\pm 0.11}r_e^{0.80\pm 0.11}`$, and for the LSB sample $`vI_e^{0.57\pm 0.13}r_e^{0.87\pm 0.17}`$.

From the sample of 386 Sa-Sc Spiral galaxies analysed by Burstein et al. (1997), they found $`v<I>_e^{0.57\pm 0.03}r_e^{0.85\pm 0.05}`$ ($`B`$-band). Applying the three-dimensional bisector regression analysis used in this paper to this very same data sample from Burstein et al. (1997) gives $`v<I>_e^{0.55\pm 0.04}r_e^{0.78\pm 0.05}`$ ($`B`$-band). From equation 4 this implies that $`(M/L_B)<I>_e^{0.10\pm 0.08}r_e^{0.56\pm 0.10}`$, in good agreement with the present papers investigation.

When Burstein et al. (1997) included all Spiral and Irregular galaxy types in their analysis, they found $`v<I>_e^{0.39\pm 0.02}r_e^{0.61\pm 0.02}`$ ($`B`$-band), a result with notably lower exponents. Although, applying the three-dimensional bisector regression analysis gives $`v<I>_e^{0.41\pm 0.01}r_e^{0.62\pm 0.02}`$, and excluding the Irregular type galaxies raises the exponents slightly to give $`v<I>_e^{0.44\pm 0.02}r_e^{0.66\pm 0.02}`$ ($`B`$-band). When the same internal extinction correction as used by Burstein et al. (1997) is applied to this papers field galaxy sample, one obtains $`vI_e^{0.48\pm 0.04}r_e^{0.73\pm 0.07}`$ ($`B`$-band), consistent at the 1$`\sigma `$ level with the result from Burstein et al. (1997).

The result from Burstein et al. (1997), using all 511 disk galaxies and irregular galaxies, leads to (although not given in their paper) $`Lv^{2.56\pm 0.13}r_e^{0.44\pm 0.07}`$ ($`B`$-band). An even larger departure from the TF relation and dependence on a third parameter was found by Willick (1999) who derived $`Lv^{2.4}r_e^{0.7}`$ ($`R`$-band). Others have also previously found evidence for the residuals about the TF relation to correlate with a third parameter (Kodaira 1989; Feast 1994; Koda et al. 2000a; Han et al. 2001, Kannappan et al. 2002), and it may be that the TF relation reflects closely, but not exactly, the Fundamental-Plane-like distributions shown here. However, there are numerous papers (e.g. Strauss & Willick 1995; Courteau 1997; and references therein) which, like this one, do not detect deviations above the 1-2$`\sigma `$ level.

It should also be kept in mind that different papers have used different methods of regression analysis to fit a plane or line to their data points. The present papers interest lies in deriving $`M/L`$ ratio estimates which can be compared with theory. The disk parameters have consequently been treated equally when constructing the optimal plane; an approach which differs from the numerous direct and inverse TF relations constructed in the past for the determination of galaxy distances – which is not the subject of the current paper. A detailed comparison with every previous study is therefore not straight-forward if at all even possible. However, a detailed analysis of one other well-respected data sample shall be presented.

The reduced and tabulated photometric data of Tully et al. (1996) and the reduced kinematic data from Verheijen & Sancisi (2001) is analysed. This consists of $`B,R,I`$ and $`K^{}`$ scale-lengths and central disk surface brightnesses, obtained from marking the disk by eye, and rotational velocities taken from where the rotation curve is flat ($`v_{\mathrm{flat}}`$). The galaxy sample are all from the Ursa Major Cluster and consequently distance errors will not contribute quite as much to the scatter. For the sake of consistency, the surface brightness term has been uniformly corrected here in the same way as the previous data was dealt with (see Section 2). Because this new sample contains relatively edge-on Spiral galaxies, the $`K^{}`$-band inclination corrections to the central surface brightness terms are large, in some cases $`>`$2.0 mag arcsec-2. For four galaxies which were catalogued to be completely edge-on, their inclinations were set to 85 when calculating this correction.

The results of the three-dimensional bisector regression analysis are presented in Table 3. In the $`B`$-band, the analysis reveals that $`\mathrm{log}(M/L_B)(0.08\mu _0+0.46\mathrm{log}h)`$, in good agreement with the previous $`B`$-band results and revealing that changes in scale-length are more important than changes in surface brightness. Figure 11 shows the results for the $`K^{}`$-band data with ($`C=1.0`$) and without ($`C=0.0`$) the inclination correction ($`2.5C\mathrm{log}[a/b]`$, where $`a/b`$ is the observed disk axis-ratio) to the surface brightness term. From the scatter one can clearly see that at near-infrared wavelengths, spiral galaxy disks should be taken to be transparent for such tests (see also Graham 2001b). One can see that the TF relation is obtained (i.e. $`y2x`$), and the slope increases from the $`B`$-band to the $`K^{}`$-band such that $`L_Bv^{2.5}`$ and $`L_K^{}v^{4.0}`$. The reduction in scatter with increasing wavelength has also been observed for many years (Aaronson, Huchra & Mould 1979). Therefore, in the near-infrared, where one is affected little by obscuring dust and young stellar populations, the $`M/L_K^{}`$ ratio varies as $`I_0^{1/2}`$, independent of $`h`$.

To again investigate possible differences between the mass-to-light ratios obtained using equation 4 and equation 5, and hence possible signatures that the total-mass profile does not scale linearly with the luminous disk profile, we have repeated Figure 7 this time using the Ursa Major galaxy Cluster data. Figure 12 presents the $`B`$-band analysis, which can be seen to display an identical behavior to that observed in Figure 7. This tends to suggest that the ratio of the mass profile scale-size to the $`B`$-band luminosity disk scale-length may not be constant, but scales weakly with the $`B`$-band disk luminosity (see Section 3). Figure 13 shows the $`K^{}`$-band data where one can see that the weak $`B`$-band dependency on absolute magnitude ($`r=0.4`$, Figure 12, lower panel) is reduced even further.

Lastly, it should perhaps also be noted that there is another mechanism to change the slope of the optimal plane within a given passband. Tully et al. (1998) have presented evidence that the appropriate extinction correction for disk galaxies in Clusters may be a function of galaxy luminosity. This was a subsequent paper to the Tully & Verheijen (1997) paper which addressed the issue of extinction corrections and provided the somewhat more standard corrections which have been used in this paper. Tully et al. (1998) analysed the data from two galaxy Clusters (53 galaxies from Ursa Major and 34 galaxies from Pisces) to determine a TF slope of 3.1 in the B-band after applying their luminosity dependent extinction correction. This is an increase of 0.2 from 2.9 found by Sprayberry et al.’s (1995) study of the Ursa Major Cluster. Perhaps contrary to this, Willick et al. (1996) found no evidence for a luminosity-dependent extinction correction when using field galaxies. The interesting analysis by Tully et al. (1998) raises many questions. For instance, the data for the Pisces Cluster galaxies on their own appear to suggest no luminosity dependent extinction correction. Additionally, whether the results in Tully et al. (1998) can be extended to LSB galaxies is unclear; why an unevolved LSB galaxy with the same luminosity as a HSB galaxy should have the same amount of extinction due to dust is not obvious. Why the S0 and S0/a galaxies do not conform is a further mystery. The issue of corrections due to dust in field galaxies is not yet fully understood, or at least commonly accepted, and therefore it should be noted that the extinction corrections used here may need adjusting when this subject is on a firmer footing.

## 6 Colours

The ($`BR`$) colour of each galaxy’s disk has been estimated using two approaches. Having previously modelled both the bulge and disk, we are better able to determine the ($`BR`$) colour for the disk alone - rather than the integrated colour of the bulge and disk. The first method has taken the difference between the corrected (see section 2) central disk surface brightness in $`B`$ and $`R`$, and the second approach has used the difference between the total disk magnitude determined in the $`B`$ and $`R`$ passbands. Each galaxies dynamical mass-to-light ratio estimate (from equation 5) is plotted against its $`BR`$ colour in Figure 14 for the HSB and LSB field galaxies, and in Figure 15 for the Ursa Major Cluster data from Tully et al. (1996) and Verheijen & Sancisi (2001). Only the disk light (that is, not the bulge light) has been used in this derivation of the dynamical mass-to-light ratio. Using the combined disk and bulge light to determine the mass-to-light ratio has very little effect on this result. It is immediately obvious that, within the noise of the present field galaxy data, no obvious correlation exists between the $`B`$\- and $`R`$-band dynamical mass-to-light ratio and $`BR`$ colour. An orthogonal regression analysis has been performed for those plots showing a possible correlation, and the Pearson correlation coefficient determined (results shown within the figures). In general, the correlations are weak.

Using a suite of simplified galaxy disk evolution models, Bell & de Jong (2001) have presented the case that the stellar mass-to-light ratio of the disk ($`M_{,\mathrm{disk}}/L_{\mathrm{disk}}`$) should be correlated with colour. Their strongest correlation was obtained with the colour ($`BR`$) such that the logarithm of a disks $`B`$-band stellar mass-to-light ratio varies as 1.25($`BR`$). While the present paper has dealt with the dynamical, or total, mass-to-light ratio ($`M_{\mathrm{dyn}}/L_{\mathrm{disk}}`$) within a fixed number of disk scale-lengths (i.e. 4), one can combine the present observational results with the theoretical predictions of Bell & de Jong (2001) to determine how the stellar-to-dynamical111111By stellar-to-dynamical mass ratio, it is meant the ratio of the stellar disk mass (excluding any possible bulge mass) to the total dynamical mass within 4 scale-lengths. mass ratio must vary with ($`BR`$) colour.

The only strong correlation detected between the dynamical mass-to-light ratio and ($`BR`$) colour is in the $`K^{}`$-band data of the Cluster Spiral galaxies (Figure 15), where $`\mathrm{log}(M_{\mathrm{dyn}}/L_{K^{}\mathrm{disk}})1.25\pm 0.28(BR)`$ (Figure 15). Combining this result with the stellar mass-to-light ratio prediction of Bell & de Jong (2001) ($`\mathrm{log}[M_{,\mathrm{disk}}/L_{K,\mathrm{disk}}]0.45[BR]`$), and neglecting differences between $`K`$ and $`K^{}`$, would imply that the logarithm of the stellar-to-dynamical mass ratio must increase as disks become redder, varying as 1.70$`\pm 0.28`$($`BR`$). If the theoretical models are correct, this implies that galaxy modellers should not assume a constant stellar-to-total mass ratio (at least within 4$`h`$) for any given passband. This conclusion seems to be at least qualitatively correct; LSB galaxies are largely unevolved blue galaxies with higher relative gas-to-total mass fractions than HSB galaxies (Bothun, Impey & McGaugh 1997).

## 7 Conclusions

The best-fitting two-dimensional plane to the 3-dimensional space of galaxy disk parameters (rotational velocity $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$, disk scale-length $`h`$, and central disk surface brightness $`\mu _0=2.5\mathrm{log}I_0`$) has been derived for a sample of nearly 100 field galaxies. In the $`B`$-band $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}I_0^{0.50\pm 0.05}h^{0.77\pm 0.07}`$, and in the $`R`$-band $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}I_0^{0.43\pm 0.04}h^{0.69\pm 0.07}`$. This implies that in the $`B`$-band the dynamical $`M/L`$ ratio is, contrary to popular claims, nearly independent of the disk surface brightness level; the disk scale-length is what is important, with $`\mathrm{log}(M/L_B)0.00(\pm 0.04)\mu _0+0.54(\pm 0.14)\mathrm{log}h`$. This general result holds when using HSB field galaxies, when using HSB and LSB field galaxies together, and when derived from the TF relation instead of the best-fitting two-dimensional plane. We should therefore not talk simply about LSB and HSB galaxies, but also give mention to their scale-lengths.

The $`M/L_B`$ ratio is shown to be largely independent of a disks ($`BR`$) colour, whereas $`M/L_K^{}`$ varies as -1.25$`\pm `$0.28($`BR`$). Combining this with recent theoretical modelling implies that the logarithm of the stellar-to-dynamical mass ratio is not a constant value, but increases as disks become redder, varying as 1.70$`\pm 0.28`$($`BR`$). Consequently, galaxy modellers should not treat this as a constant quantity.

In the $`R`$-band $`\mathrm{log}(M/L_R)0.06(\pm 0.03)\mu _0+0.38(\pm 0.14)\mathrm{log}h`$. Extensions to redder passbands, albeit using a sample of Cluster spirals, reveals that the $`M/L`$ ratio becomes increasingly less dependent on the disk scale-length at longer wavelengths, reaching the situation where $`M/L1/\sqrt{I_0}`$ at $`K^{}`$.

Marginal evidence is presented to suggest that the ratio of the mass-profile scale-size ($`a`$) to the luminous disk scale-length ($`h`$) may vary with disk luminosity in the $`B`$-band, such that $`a/h`$ decreases with increasing disk luminosity. A method to test this tentative possibility is described.

## 8 acknowledgements

I wish to thank Erwin de Blok for kindly providing me with electronic tables of the kinematical data used in this study. I am also grateful to David Burstein and Renée Kraan-Korteweg for providing me with their velocity flow codes, and to Bahram Mobasher and Ken Freeman for their careful reading and helpful comments on this manuscript.

This research has made use of the LEDA database (http://leda.univ-lyon1.fr). This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Parkes telescope is part of the Australia Telescope which is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO.


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# Statistical Properties of Interacting Bose Gases in Quasi-2D Harmonic Traps

## I Introduction

The remarkable observations of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in atomic vapors  have opened up new avenues of research into the physical properties and nature of Bose-condensed systems . Recently BECs have been realized in quasi-one and quasi-two dimensions , where new phenomena such as quasicondensates with a fluctuating phase  and a Tonks gas of impenetrable bosons  may be observed. After the realization of BEC, the statistical properties of the system (especially the particle number fluctuations of the condensate) have been studied in deep for three-dimensional (3D) ideal Bose gases confined in a box , and in the presence of a harmonic trap . Recently the question of how interatomic interactions affect the particle number fluctuations has also been the object of several theoretical investigations . Recall that BECs can not occur in one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) uniform Bose gases at finite temperature, because in that case thermal fluctuations would destabilize the condensate. The realization of the trapped BECs in various dimensions makes the behavior of particle number fluctuations a very interesting problem, especially for 1D and 2D Bose gases in a harmonic trap.

It is well known that the theory based on a grand-canonical ensemble gives unphysically large particle number fluctuations of condensate, in particular when the temperature approaches zero. It is therefore necessary to use a canonical (or microcanonical) ensemble to investigate the statistical properties of the trapped Bose gas. Recently a simple method has been developed  to calculate the probability distribution of the condensate within canonical ensembles. As soon as the probability distribution of the condensate is known, the statistical properties of the system can be obtained directly. With this method the mean ground state occupation number and particle number fluctuations for the 3D have been considered for interacting gas trapped in a box  and a harmonic potential . The role of dimensionality  on the statistical properties of the ideal gas was also discussed recently through the calculations of the probability distribution for different spatial dimensions and various confining potentials. The purpose of the present work is an attempt to investigate the probability distribution of quasi-2D (and purely 2D) ideal and interacting gases confined in a harmonic trap. Using the probability distribution function obtained, we can calculate the statistical properties of the system such as the mean occupation number and particle number fluctuations of condensate in a simple way.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II we give a simple introduction of our approach to calculate the statistical properties of the Bose gas within the canonical ensemble. In Secs. III and IV we investigate the statistical properties of quasi-2D (and purely 2D) ideal and interacting Bose gases, respectively. The last section (Sec. V) contains a discussion and summary of our results.

## II Probability Distribution within Canonical Ensemble

The statistical method used in this work follows from that used for the 3D dilute interacting gases developed in Ref. , where a canonical ensemble is used to discuss the statistical properties of the system. We start from the canonical partition function of $`N`$ trapped interacting bosons, given by

$$Z\left(N\right)=\underset{\mathrm{\Sigma }_𝐧N_𝐧=N}{}\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(E_\mathrm{𝟎}+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{𝐧\mathrm{𝟎}}N_𝐧\epsilon _𝐧+E_{int}\right)\right],$$
(1)
where $`\beta =1/k_BT`$, $`N_𝐧`$ and $`\epsilon _𝐧`$ are occupation number and energy level of the state $`𝐧`$, respectively. $`E_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ is the energy of the condensate of the system. In the case of non-interacting Bose gas, $`E_\mathrm{𝟎}=N_\mathrm{𝟎}\epsilon _\mathrm{𝟎}`$; for the case of interacting Bose gas, however, $`E_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ should be regarded as the interaction energy of the condensate. In the above equation, $`E_{int}`$ is the interaction energy between the condensate and the normal gas, which takes the form

$$E_{int}=2gn_0\left(𝐫\right)n_T\left(𝐫\right)d^3𝐫+gn_T^2\left(𝐫\right)d^3𝐫,$$
(2)
where $`n_0\left(𝐫\right)`$ and $`n_T\left(𝐫\right)`$ are the density distribution of the condensate and normal gas, respectively. In the above equation, $`g`$ represents the coupling constant.

The probability distribution of a condensate is defined as the probability to find $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ atoms in the condensate. Through a developed saddle-point method  one can obtain the probability distribution of the condensate, which is found to be

$$G_n(N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})=A_n\mathrm{exp}\left[_{N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p}^{N_\mathrm{𝟎}}\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})𝑑N_\mathrm{𝟎}\right],$$
(3)
where $`A_n`$ and $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p`$ are normalization constant and the most probability value of the condensate, respectively. The quantity $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})`$ can be obtained based on the following equation:

$$N_\mathrm{𝟎}=N\underset{𝐧\mathrm{𝟎}}{}\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \epsilon _𝐧\right]\mathrm{exp}[\beta \frac{}{N_\mathrm{𝟎}}\left(E_\mathrm{𝟎}+E_{int}\right)\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})]1}.$$
(4)
By setting $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})=0`$ in Eq. (4) one gets the most probability value $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p`$,

$$N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p=N\underset{𝐧\mathrm{𝟎}}{}\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \epsilon _𝐧\right]\mathrm{exp}[\beta \frac{}{N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p}\left(E_\mathrm{𝟎}+E_{int}\right)]1}.$$
(5)
Note that $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p`$ is exactly the mean ground state occupation number within a grand canonical ensemble, when the lowest order perturbation theory is used to discuss the role of atom-atom interactions (see Ref. ). Although $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})`$ can be obtained directly from Eq. (4), it is more convenient to calculate it through the difference between $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ and $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,`$ i.e.,

$`N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p={\displaystyle \underset{𝐧\mathrm{𝟎}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \epsilon _𝐧\right]\mathrm{exp}[\beta \frac{}{N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p}\left(E_\mathrm{𝟎}+E_{int}\right)]1}}`$

$$\underset{𝐧\mathrm{𝟎}}{}\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \epsilon _𝐧\right]\mathrm{exp}[\beta \frac{}{N_\mathrm{𝟎}}\left(E_\mathrm{𝟎}+E_{int}\right)\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})]1}.$$
(6)
Once we know $`\epsilon _𝐧`$, $`E_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ and $`E_{int}`$ of the system, it is straightforward to obtain $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})`$ from Eq. (6). Then by Eq. (3) one can obtain the probability distribution of the condensate directly.

As soon as we know $`G_n(N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})`$, the statistical properties of the system can be clearly described. From the probability distribution function given by Eq. (3) one obtains $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ and $`\delta ^2N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ within the canonical ensemble:

$$N_\mathrm{𝟎}=\frac{_{N_\mathrm{𝟎}=0}^NN_\mathrm{𝟎}G_n(N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})}{_{N_\mathrm{𝟎}=0}^NG_n(N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})},$$
(7)
$$\delta ^2N_\mathrm{𝟎}=\frac{_{N_\mathrm{𝟎}=0}^NN_\mathrm{𝟎}^2G_n(N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})}{_{N_\mathrm{𝟎}=0}^NG_n(N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})}\left[\frac{_{N_\mathrm{𝟎}=0}^NN_\mathrm{𝟎}G_n(N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})}{_{N_\mathrm{𝟎}=0}^NG_n(N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})}\right]^2.$$
(8)
We see that in this approach, the calculation of $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})`$ by using Eq. (6) plays a crucial role to discuss the statistical properties of the condensate.

## III Ideal Bose Gases in a Quasi-2D Harmonic Trap

Now we apply the formulation introduced in the last section to calculate the thermodynamical quantities such as the particle number fluctuations of the condensate for an ideal 2D Bose gas. We first consider the statistical properties of a purely 2D Bose gas confined in axially symmetric traps. The purely 2D Bose gas can be regarded as the limit of a trapped 3D Bose gas with the trapping frequency $`\omega _z`$ in the $`z`$ direction approaching infinity.

The single-particle energy level of the purely 2D Bose gas in an axially symmetric harmonic trap takes the form

$$\epsilon _𝐧=\left(n_x+n_y+1\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{},$$
(9)
where $`\omega _{}=\omega _z=\omega _y`$ is the trapping frequency in the radial direction. From Eqs. (6) and (9), one gets

$$N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p=\underset{𝐧\mathrm{𝟎}}{}\left[\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]1}\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}[\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})]1}\right].$$
(10)
Assuming $`\left|\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})\right|<<1`$, we obtain the result of $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})`$:

$$\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})=\frac{N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p}{\mathrm{\Xi }_{2D}},$$
(11)
where

$$\mathrm{\Xi }_{2D}=\underset{𝐧\mathrm{𝟎}}{}\frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]}{\left\{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]1\right\}^2}.$$
(12)
It is easy to find that Eq. (11) coincides with the assumption $`\left|\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})\right|<<1`$. Using Eq. (3), the probability distribution of the purely 2D ideal gas is then given by

$$G_{2D}=A_{2D}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\left(N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p\right)^2}{2\mathrm{\Xi }_{2D}}\right],$$
(13)
where $`A_{2D}`$ is a normalization constant.

In addition, from Eqs. (5) and (9), we obtain the most probable value $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p`$ as :

$$N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p=NNt^2tN^{1/2}\mathrm{ln}N,$$
(14)
where we have introduced a reduced temperature $`t=T/T_c^0`$, with $`T_c^0=\left(N/\zeta \left(2\right)\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{}\omega _{}/k_B`$ being the critical temperature of the system in the thermodynamic limit.

Using the formulas (7), (8), (13) and (14), we can obtain the mean ground state occupation number and particle number fluctuations of the condensate. In particular, below the critical temperature (i.e., in the case of $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p>>1`$), the analytical result of the particle number fluctuations is given by

$$\delta ^2N_\mathrm{𝟎}_{2D}=\mathrm{\Xi }_{2D}\frac{Nt^2}{\zeta \left(2\right)}\left[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{Nt^2}{\zeta \left(2\right)}\right)+1\right].$$
(15)
When obtaining Eq. (15) we have used the formula $`\delta ^2N_\mathrm{𝟎}=a/2`$ for the particle number fluctuations when the probability distribution is a Gaussian function with the form $`G_n=A_n\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(N_\mathrm{𝟎}^pN_\mathrm{𝟎}\right)^2/a\right]`$, and $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p>>1`$. A simple derivation for this result has been given in the Appendix of Ref. .

We see that the particle number fluctuations of the harmonically trapped 2D gas exhibit a very weakly anomalous behavior, as it is controlled by the factor $`\mathrm{ln}\left(Nt^2/\zeta \left(2\right)\right)`$. Shown in Fig. 1 is the numerical result of $`\delta N_\mathrm{𝟎}=\sqrt{\delta ^2N_\mathrm{𝟎}_{2D}}`$ (solid line) for $`N=10^3`$ purely 2D ideal bosons confined in an axially symmetric trap. The numerical result of $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}/N`$ (solid line) for $`N=10^3`$ purely 2D ideal bosons is demonstrated in Fig. 2. As a comparison, $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}/N`$ within a grand-canonical ensemble (or $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p`$ within the canonical ensemble) is also shown in the figure. It is easy to show that $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p`$ coincides with $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ in the case of $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p>>1`$. However, there is an obvious difference between $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p`$ and $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ near the critical temperature when the total number of particles $`N`$ is smaller than $`5\times 10^3`$.

In the recent experiment , a quasi-2D BEC has been realized by choosing the frequency $`\omega _z`$ large enough in a 3D trap. For a real 3D axially symmetric trap, the single-particle energy level is $`\epsilon _𝐧=\left(n_x+n_y+1\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}+(n_z+1/2)\mathrm{}\omega _z`$. The occupation number $`N_𝐧`$ of the exited $`𝐧\mathrm{𝟎}`$ is then given by

$$N_𝐧=\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}[\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z]1}.$$
(16)
We see that in the case of $`\mathrm{}\omega _z>k_BT`$ the occupation number of the excited state $`n_z0`$ is very small, i.e., the oscillation motion is frozen in the $`z`$ direction. Thus, for an ideal Bose gas, in order to achieve 2D Bose-Einstein condensation in a real 3D trap, we should choose the frequency $`\omega _z`$ large enough to satisfy the condition $`\mathrm{}\omega _{}<<k_BT<\mathrm{}\omega _z`$. The system is said to be a quasi-2D one when this condition is satisfied. To display the property of the quai-2D Bose gas, it is useful to define a dimensionless parameter $`z=\mathrm{}\omega _z/k_BT_c^0`$, which represents the ratio between $`\mathrm{}\omega _z`$ and $`k_BT_c^0`$.

From Eq. (4), for the quasi-2D ideal gas we get

$`N_\mathrm{𝟎}=N{\displaystyle \underset{n_x,n_y0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}[\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})]1}}\right]`$

$$\underset{n_z=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{n_x,n_y=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left[\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z\right]\mathrm{exp}[\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})]1}\right].$$
(17)
For convenience we separate off the state $`n_z=0`$ from the state $`n_z0`$ in the sum on the right hand side of Eq. (17). By setting $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})=0`$ in Eq. (17), we get $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p`$:

$`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p=N{\displaystyle \underset{n_x,n_y0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]1}}\right]`$

$$\underset{n_z=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{n_x,n_y=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left[\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z\right]1}\right].$$
(18)
From Eqs. (17) and (18), it is straightforward to get the finial result of $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})`$

$$\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})=\frac{N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p}{\mathrm{\Xi }_{2D}+\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}},$$
(19)
where $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{2D}`$ is the constant determined by Eq. (12), and

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}=\underset{n_z=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{n_x,n_y=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z\right]}{\left\{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z\right]1\right\}^2}.$$
(20)
For the quasi-2D gas, we have $`k_BT<\mathrm{}\omega _z`$. In this situation, $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}`$ can be approximated as:

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}=\frac{Nt^2}{\zeta \left(2\right)}\left[\underset{n_z=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z\right)\right].$$
(21)
The probability distribution of the quasi-2D gas is then

$$G_{q2D}=A_{q2D}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\left(N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p\right)^2}{2\left(\mathrm{\Xi }_{2D}+\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}\right)}\right],$$
(22)
where $`A_{q2D}`$ is a normalization constant. In addition, from Eq. (18), the most probability value can be approximated as:

$$N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p=NNt^2tN^{1/2}\mathrm{ln}N\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}.$$
(23)
The last term $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}`$ on the right hand side of Eq. (23) represents a modification between a quasi-2D and a purely 2D Bose gas.

From the formulas (7), (8), (22) and (23), we can obtain the mean ground state occupation number and particle number fluctuations of the condensate for the quasi-2D gas. Below the critical temperature, the particle number fluctuations of the condensate for the quasi-2D gas is given by

$$\delta ^2N_\mathrm{𝟎}_{q2D}=\mathrm{\Xi }_{2D}+\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}.$$
(24)
Similar to the most probability value, the last term $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}`$ on the right hand side of Eq. (24) represents a modification between the quasi-2D and the purely 2D Bose gas.

In Fig. 1, the numerical results of $`\delta N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ for the quasi-2D ideal gas are shown for $`z=1`$ (dashed line) and $`z=2`$ (dotted line), respectively. The continuous crossover of $`\delta N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ from the quasi-2D to the purely 2D gases is clearly illustrated in the figure. Below the critical temperature, we see that $`\delta N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ of the quasi-2D gas is slightly larger than the result of the purely 2D gas because confinement has the effect of reducing the particle number fluctuations. As a comparison, the dot-dashed line in Fig. 1 displays $`\delta N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ of $`N=10^3`$ ideal bosons confined in a 3D istropic harmonic trap, where the oscillator frequency is assumed to be equal to the transverse frequency $`\omega _{}`$ of 2D Bose gas. The arrow marks the critical temperature of the 3D Bose gas in the thermodynamic limit. Shown in Fig. 2 are the numerical results of $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}/N`$ for the quasi-2D ideal gas with $`z=1`$ (dashed line) and $`z=2`$ (dotted line). There is also a continuous crossover of $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}/N`$ from quasi-2D to purely 2D gases. In addition, $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}/N`$ for the quasi-2D gas is slightly smaller than the result of the purely 2D gas.

## IV Interacting Bose Gases in a Quasi-2D Harmonic Trap

In this section we turn to discuss the statistical properties of a quasi-2D interacting Bose gas in an axially symmetric trap. The interaction between atoms can be described by a single coupling constant $`g2\sqrt{2\pi }\mathrm{}^2a_s/\left(ml_z\right)`$  which is fixed by a $`s`$ -wave scattering length $`a_s`$ and the oscillator length $`l_z=(\mathrm{}/m\omega _z)^{1/2}`$ in the $`z`$ direction. Note that the coupling constant in the quasi-2D interacting gas is related to the trapping frequency $`\omega _z`$ in the $`z`$ direction because it is the trapping frequency $`\omega _z`$ that leads to the crossover from a 3D to a quasi-2D gas. This unique property makes the statistical properties of the quasi-2D interacting gas a very interesting problem. By the investigation of the statistical properties of the quasi-2D interacting gas, one can get a clear description of the role of the trapping frequency $`\omega _z`$. For a weakly repulsive interacting Bose-condensed gas, the correlation length $`\mathrm{}/\sqrt{mn_0g}`$ ($`n_0`$ is the density distribution of the condensate) should greatly exceed the mean interparticle separation $`1/\sqrt{2\pi n_0}`$. In this situation, one can introduce a small parameter $`\theta =mg/2\pi \mathrm{}^2<<1`$ for the weakly interacting gas .

In Thomas-Fermi regime the chemical potential of the quasi-2D gas is given by $`\mu (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)=(N_\mathrm{𝟎}mg/\pi )^{1/2}\omega _{}`$. In addition, there is an important relation between $`E_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ and $`\mu (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)`$: $`\mu (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)=E_\mathrm{𝟎}/N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$. It is convenient to introduce a dimensionless parameter $`\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)`$ defined by

$$\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)=\frac{\mu (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)}{k_BT}.$$
(25)
It can be rewritten as:

$$\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)=\eta _0\left(1t^2\right)/t,$$
(26)
where $`t`$ is the reduced temperature introduced before and $`\eta _0=\sqrt{2\zeta \left(2\right)\theta }=1.62(a_s/l_z)^{1/2}`$ is a small parameter for the weakly interacting gas. Note that $`\eta _0`$ is irrelative to the number of the condensed atoms. For the low-dimensional experiment  on Bose-condensed systems a simple calculation gives $`\eta _0=0.1`$. We will see in the following that the role of atom-atom interactions on the thermodynamic properties of the system is determined by the parameter $`\eta _0`$.

For the quasi-2D interacting gas, with the lowest order approximation, the occupation number $`N_𝐧`$ of the exited state $`𝐧\mathrm{𝟎}`$ is given by

$$N_𝐧=\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}[\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)]1}.$$
(27)
The term $`\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)`$ in the above equation represents the interaction correction due to the interatomic interacion in the condensate. Different from the ideal gas, we see from Eq. (27) that the occurrence of the quasi-2D interacting gas should satisfy the condition $`\mathrm{}\omega _z>\mu (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)>>\mathrm{}\omega _{}`$ (see also Ref. ). Note that the occurrence of a quasi-2D ideal gas should satisfy the condition $`\mathrm{}\omega _z>k_BT>>\mathrm{}\omega _{}`$.

Omitting the interaction between condensed and normal gases, from Eq. (4), we get

$`N_\mathrm{𝟎}=N{\displaystyle \underset{n_x,n_y0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\right]\mathrm{exp}[\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})]1}}\right]`$

$$\underset{n_z=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{n_x,n_y=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left[\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\right]\mathrm{exp}[\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})]1}\right].$$
(28)
By setting $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})=0`$ in Eq. (28), $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p`$ is given by

$`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p=N{\displaystyle \underset{n_x,n_y0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\right]1}}\right]`$

$$\underset{n_z=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{n_x,n_y=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left[\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\right]1}\right].$$
(29)
From Eqs. (28) and (29), we get

$$N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p=\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{2D}+\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{mod},$$
(30)
where

$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{2D}={\displaystyle \underset{n_x,n_y0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\right]1}}`$

$$\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\right]\mathrm{exp}[\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})]1}],$$
(31)
and

$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{mod}={\displaystyle \underset{n_z=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{n_x,n_y=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\right]1}}`$

$$\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta \left(n_x+n_y\right)\mathrm{}\omega _{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta n_z\mathrm{}\omega _z\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\right]\mathrm{exp}[\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})]1}].$$
(32)
### A Pure two-dimensional interacting Bose gases

Firstly we discuss a purely 2D interacting gas where $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{mod}`$ can be omitted because $`\beta \mathrm{}\omega _z\mathrm{}`$ in this situation. Thus for the purely 2D interacting gas, from Eq. (30), one gets

$`N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p={\displaystyle \frac{Nt^2}{\zeta \left(2\right)}}\{[\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)]+`$

$$[\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\mathrm{ln}\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)\mathrm{ln}\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)]+\alpha \mathrm{ln}\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)\}.$$
(33)
When obtaining Eq. (33), we have used $`\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)<<1`$ by assuming that the interaction is weak. In addition, when obtaining this formula we have used the assumption $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})<<\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)`$ which may not hold in the case of an extremely weak interaction. However, we will see in the following that this assumption is reasonable over a wide range of the experimental parameters.

Using the following Taylor expansion

$$\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)=\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)\frac{\eta _0}{2Nt\left(1t^2\right)^{1/2}}\left(N_\mathrm{𝟎}^pN_\mathrm{𝟎}\right),$$
(34)
one gets the result for $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})`$:

$$\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})=\frac{1+\eta _0t\left|\mathrm{ln}\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)\right|/\left[2\zeta \left(2\right)\left(1t^2\right)^{1/2}\right]}{Nt^2\left|\mathrm{ln}\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)\right|/\zeta \left(2\right)}\left(N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p\right).$$
(35)
Below the critical temperature, $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})`$ can be approximated as:

$$\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})=\frac{N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p}{Nt^2\left|\mathrm{ln}\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)\right|/\zeta \left(2\right)}.$$
(36)
We see that the assumption $`\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})<<\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)`$ holds in the present low-dimensional Bose condensed experiment, where $`\eta _0=0.1`$. The distribution function of the condensate below the critical temperature is then

$$G_{2D}=A_{2D}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\left(N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p\right)^2}{2Nt^2\left|\mathrm{ln}\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)\right|/\zeta \left(2\right)}\right],$$
(37)
where $`A_{2D}`$ is a normalization constant. In addition, the most probability value $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p`$ is given by

$$N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p=NNt^2N\eta _0\left(1t^2\right)t\left[1\mathrm{ln}\left(\eta _0\left(1t^2\right)/t\right)\right]/\zeta \left(2\right)tN^{1/2}\mathrm{ln}N.$$
(38)
Below the critical temperature, the particle number fluctuations of the condensate in the purely 2D interacting gas is given by

$$\delta ^2N_\mathrm{𝟎}_{2D}=\frac{Nt^2\left|\mathrm{ln}\left[\eta _0\left(1t^2\right)/t\right]\right|}{\zeta \left(2\right)}.$$
(39)
We see that interaction between atoms greatly changes the behavior of the particle number fluctuations, in comparison with the case of a 3D Bose gas (see Ref. ). For small $`\eta _0`$ considered in the present study, the interaction between atoms have an effect of reducing the particle number fluctuations. We should note that Eq. (39) do not hold in the case of extremely low $`\eta _0`$ and when $`\eta _0`$ near $`1`$.

From the formulas (7), (8), (37) and (38) we can obtain the numerical result of the mean ground state occupation number and particle number fluctuations of the condensate. Shown in Fig. 3 is the numerical result of $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}/N`$ (dot-dashed line) for the purely 2D interacting gas with the interaction parameter $`\eta _0=0.1`$. The numerical result of $`\delta N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ (dot-dashed line) with $`\eta _0=0.1`$ is demonstrated in Fig. 4. We see from Fig. 4 that the interaction between atoms will remarkably lower the particle number fluctuations. With the decrease of the trapping frequency in the $`z`$ direction, the particle number fluctuations will increase as a result of weakening the confinement in the $`z`$ direction.

### B Quasi-two-dimensional interacting Bose gases

Now we discuss the statistical properties of a quasi-2D interacting gas. For the quasi-2D interacting gas, the second term $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{mod}`$ on the right hand side of Eq. (30) can not be omitted. In the case of $`\mathrm{}\omega _z>\mu (N_\mathrm{𝟎},T)`$, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{mod}`$ can be approximated as:

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{mod}=\alpha (N,N_\mathrm{𝟎})\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D},$$
(40)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}`$ is the constant given by Eq. (20). Using the approximation of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{mod}`$ it is easy to obtain the probability distribution and particle number fluctuations of the quasi-2D interacting gas below the critical temperature, which is given by

$$G_{q2D}=A_{q2D}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\left(N_\mathrm{𝟎}N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p\right)^2}{2Nt^2\left|\mathrm{ln}\eta (N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p,T)\right|/\zeta \left(2\right)+2\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}}\right],$$
(41)
$$\delta ^2N_\mathrm{𝟎}_{q2D}=\frac{Nt^2\left|\mathrm{ln}\left[\eta _0\left(1t^2\right)/t\right]\right|}{\zeta \left(2\right)}+\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}.$$
(42)
In addition, the most probability value is given by

$$N_\mathrm{𝟎}^p=NNt^2N\eta _0\left(1t^2\right)t\left[1\mathrm{ln}\left(\eta _0\left(1t^2\right)/t\right)\right]/\zeta \left(2\right)tN^{1/2}\mathrm{ln}N\mathrm{\Theta }_{2D}.$$
(43)
Based on the formulas (7), (8), (41), and (43), the mean ground state occupation number and particle number fluctuations of the condensate are calculated numerically. In Fig. 3, the numerical results of $`N_\mathrm{𝟎}/N`$ for $`N=10^3`$ quasi-2D interacting bosons with $`\eta _0=0.1`$ are shown for $`z=1`$ (dashed line) and $`z=2`$ (dotted line), respectively. Shown in Fig. 4 is the numerical result of $`\delta N_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ with the same interaction parameter $`\eta _0=0.1`$. Similarly to 2D ideal gas, below the critical temperature, we see that the particle number fluctuations in a quai-2D interacting gas is slightly larger than the result of a purely 2D one.

## V Discussion and Conclusion

In this work, the statistical properties of pure- and quasi-2D Bose gases are investigated within the canonical ensemble by using the method developed recently in Refs. . It is found that there is a continuous crossover of the statistical properties from quasi-2D to purely 2D gases. Different from the case of a 3D gas, the effects of two-body interaction and strong confinement in the $`z`$-direction change drastically the nature of the particle number fluctuations for a quasi-2D Bose gas. For the quasi-2D interacting gas the role of atom-atom interaction on the particle number fluctuations is determined by the reduced interaction parameter $`\eta _0`$, which is determined not only by the $`s`$-wave scattering length but also by the trapping frequency $`\omega _z`$ in the $`z`$ direction. Thus one can control the particle number fluctuations in the condensate by adjusting the trapping frequency in the $`z`$ direction. This unique property makes it very promising to observe the particle number fluctuations in quasi-2D condensates.

In the present work, the contribution to the particle number fluctuations due to collective excitations is omitted. For 3D Bose gas, as pointed out in , the role of collective excitations would be very important near zero temperature. By using Bogoliubov approach, the role of the collective excitations on the condensate fluctuations would be very interested for the case of 2D Bose gas. After the realization of low-dimensional Bose gas, the property of collective excitations in 2D Bose gas becomes a very interested problem. With the development of the theoretical research on the collective excitations of 2D Bose condensed gas, we anticipate that the role of the collective excitations on the condensate fluctuations would be given in the near future.

It is obvious that the method given here can be also applied to other Bose systems, such as an elongated (quasi-1D) trap. The discussion on the statistical properties of the quasi-1D interacting Bose gas is beyond the scope of this work and will be presented elsewhere.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Science Foundation of Zhijiang College, Zhejiang University of Technology and Natural Science Foundation of China. G. X. Huang was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Trans-Century Training Programme Foundation for the Talents and the University Key Teacher Foundation of Chinese Ministry of Education. S. J. Liu and H. W. Xiong thank Professors Y. F Cao, G. S. Jia and J. F. Shen for their enormous encouragement. In particular, the books presented by Professor Y. F Cao is very useful for our research.