P1: JER/MBL/mkv/sny P2: MBL/plb QC: MBL/abe T1: MBL January 9, 1998 15:15 Annual Reviews AR037-04 Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 1997. 35:101–36 Copyright c 1997 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved OBSERVATIONAL SELECTION BIAS AFFECTING THE DETERMINATION OF THE EXTRAGALACTIC DISTANCE SCALE P. Teerikorpi Tuorla Observatory, Turku University, FIN-21500 Piikki¨o, Finland; e-mail:
[email protected].fi KEY WORDS: galaxies, Tully-Fisher relation, Malmquist bias, distance scale, cosmology ABSTRACT The influence of Malmquist bias on the studies of extragalactic distances is re- viewed, with brief glimpses of the history from Kapteyn to Scott. Special attention is paid to two kinds of biases, for which the names Malmquist biases of the first and second kind are proposed. The essence of these biases and the situations where they occur are discussed. The bias of the first kind is related to the classical Malmquist bias (involving the “volume effect”), while the bias of the second kind appears when standard candles are observed at different (true) distances, whereby magnitude limit cuts away a part of the luminosity function. In particular, study of the latter bias in distance indicators such as Tully Fisher, available for large fundamental samples of galaxies, allows construction of an unbiased absolute distance scale in the by University of Wisconsin - Madison on 03/12/08. For personal use only. local galaxy universe where approximate kinematic relative distances can be de- rived. Such investigations, using the method of normalized distances or of the Spaenhauer diagram, support the linearity of the Hubble law and make it possible Annu.