Dynamical friction - The Hubble diagram as a cosmological test

Abstract

Effects on the Hubble diagram of the frictional accretion of small cluster galaxies by large ones, to which Ostriker and Tremaine have recently drawn attention, must be accurately determined if the magnitude-redshift relation is to become a viable cosmological test. We find that the process might be detectable through the concomitant change in galaxy colors, but that its effect on the dispersion of magnitudes of first-ranked cluster galaxies would be negligible even if the change in average magnitude is very important. The sign of the effect of accretion on the luminosity observed within a given aperture depends on the structures of the galaxies involved. The size of the effect not only depends sensitively on the galaxy structures, but is also amplified when the relatively recent collapse times of the clusters are taken into account. It is vital to answer the complicated observational and theoretical questions raised by these preliminary calculations, because the Hubble diagram remains the most promising approach to the deceleration parameter q/sub 0/. Local tests of the density of the universe do not give equivalent information. (AIP)