X-ray/NIR correlation for early-type galaxies

NIR luminosities should provide a superior measure of stellar mass compared to optical luminosities used in previous studies, especially if there is significant star formation or dust present in the galaxies. However, we show that the X-ray-NIR relations are remarkably consistent with the X-ray-optical relations.

This indicates that the large scatter of the relations is dominated by scatter in the X-ray properties of early-type galaxies, and is consistent with early-types consisting of old, quiescent stellar populations. We have investigated scatter in terms of environment, surface brightness profile, Mg2, H{beta}, H{gamma} line strength indices, spectroscopic age and nuclear H{alpha} emission.