Relation between dust and radio luminosity in optically selected early type galaxies

Abstract

We have surveyed an optical/IR selected sample of nearby E/S0 galaxies with and without nuclear dust structures with the VLA at 3.6 cm to a sensitivity of 100 mu Jy. We can construct a Radio Luminosity Function (RLF) of these galaxies to ~ 10¹⁹ W Hz^-1 and find that ~ 50% of these galaxies have AGNs at this level. The space density of these AGNs equals that of starburst galaxies at this luminosity. Several dust-free galaxies have low luminosity radio cores, and their RLF is not significantly less than that of the dusty galaxies.