Early-type ('discless') galaxies with dust lanes

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Abstract
We present a comprehensive homogeneous sample of 40 galaxies which contain strong dust lanes but exhibit no obvious associated luminous discs. A dearth of such galaxies in the North is attributed to the poorer resolution of the Palomar Sky Survey relative to the ESO/SRC IIIaJ Southern Sky Survey which is our source material in the south. We infer that there may not be a comparably large population of galaxies with dust lanes closely confined to their central regions. The orientation of the dust lanes is varied but the majority occur impartially on the major or minor axes of the light distribution, with a substantial minority of ‘skew’ cases with the dust at an intermediate angle. We suggest that the properties of these systems are best attributed to the accretion of cool material at a fairly recent epoch (less than a few × 109 yr ago) and that subsequent evolution of this material can explain the observed distribution of dust lane orientations. It appears possible that a significant number of early-type galaxies are prolate in form.

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