We present a detailed analysis of the morphology, isophotal parameters and surface brightness profiles for 100 early-type members of the Virgo Cluster, from dwarfs (M B = −15.1 mag) to giants (M B = −21.8 mag). Each galaxy has been imaged in two filters, closely resembling the Sloan g and z passbands, using the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope. Dust and complex morphological structures are common. Dust is detected in as many as 18, preferentially bright, galaxies. The incidence rate in the 26 galaxies brighter than B T = 12.15 mag, which form a magnitude limited sample, is 42%. The amount and distribution of dust show no obvious correlations with galaxy morphology; dust features range from faint wisps and patches on tens of parsec scales, to regular, highly organized kpc-scale dust disks. Blue star clusters are interspersed within the larger, clumpier dust disks, while thin, dynamically cold stellar disks are seen in association with the smaller, uniform nuclear dust disks. Kiloparsec-scale stellar disks, bars, and nuclear stellar disks are seen in 60% of galaxies with intermediate luminosity (−20 M B −17). In at least one case (VCC 1938 = NGC 4638), the large-scale stellar disk has a sharp inner edge, possibly produced when disk instabilities led to the formation of a (now dissolved) bar. This process might indeed be seen unfolding in one galaxy, VCC 1537 (=NGC 4528). A spiral structure might be present in VCC 1199, an elliptical companion of M49. In dwarf galaxies, spiral structures are confirmed in VCC 856 and detected for the first time in VCC 1695. Surface brightness profiles, ellipticities, major axis position angles, and isophotal shapes are derived typically within 8 kpc from the center for the brightest galaxies, and 1.5 kpc for the faintest systems, with a resolution (FWHM) of 7 pc. For all but 10 of the galaxies, the surface brightness profiles are well described by a Sérsic model with index n which increases steadily from the fainter to the brightest galaxies. In agreement with previous claims, the inner profiles (typically within 100 pc of the center) of eight of the 10 brightest galaxies, to which we will refer as "core" galaxies, are lower than expected based on an extrapolation of the outer Sérsic model, and are better described by a single power-law function. Core galaxies are clearly distinct in having fainter central surface brightness, µ 0 , and shallower logarithmic slope of the inner surface brightness profile, γ, than expected based on the extrapolation of the trend followed by the rest of the sample, for which both µ 0 and γ increase steadily with galaxy magnitude. Large-scale, global properties also set core galaxies apart: the effective radius in particular is found to be almost one order of magnitude larger than for only slightly less luminous non-core galaxies. Contrary to previous claims, we find no evidence in support of a strong bimodal behavior of the inner profile slope, γ; in particular the γ distribution for galaxies which do not show evidence of m...

The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey consists of HST ACS imaging for 100 early-type galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, observed in the F475W (%SDSS g) and F850LP (%SDSS z) filters. We derive distances for 84 of these galaxies using the method of surface brightness fluctuations (SBFs), present the SBF distance catalog, and use this database to examine the three-dimensional distribution of early-type galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. The SBF distance moduli have a mean (random) measurement error of 0.07 mag (0.5 Mpc), or roughly 3 times better than previous SBF measurements for Virgo Cluster galaxies. Five galaxies lie at a distance of d % 23 Mpc and are members of the W 0 cloud. The remaining 79 galaxies have a narrow distribution around our adopted distance of hdi ¼ 16:5 AE 0:1 (random mean error) AE1.1 Mpc (systematic). The rms distance scatter of this sample is (d ) ¼ 0:6 AE 0:1 Mpc, with little or no dependence on morphological type or luminosity class (i.e., 0:7 AE 0:1 and 0:5 AE 0:1 Mpc for the giants and dwarfs, respectively). The back-to-front depth of the cluster measured from our sample of early-type galaxies is 2:4 AE 0:4 Mpc (i.e., AE 2 of the intrinsic distance distribution). The M87 (cluster A) and M49 (cluster B) subclusters are found to lie at distances of 16:7 AE 0:2 and 16:4 AE 0:2 Mpc, respectively. There may be a third subcluster associated with M86. A weak correlation between velocity and line-of-sight distance may be a faint echo of the cluster velocity distribution not having yet completely virialized. In three dimensions, Virgo's early-type galaxies appear to define a slightly triaxial distribution, with axis ratios of (1: 0.7 : 0.5). The principal axis of the best-fit ellipsoid is inclined $20 Y 40 from the line of sight, while the galaxies belonging to the W 0 cloud lie on an axis inclined by $10 Y15 .

We present the color distributions of globular cluster (GC) systems for 100 Virgo cluster earlytype galaxies observed in the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey, the deepest and most homogeneous survey of this kind to date. While the color distributions of individual GC systems can show significant variations from one another, their general properties are consistent with continuous trends across galaxy luminosity, color, and stellar mass. On average, galaxies at all luminosities in our study (−22 < M B < −15) appear to have bimodal or asymmetric GC color distributions. Almost all galaxies possess a component of metal-poor GCs, with the average fraction of metal-rich GCs ranging from 15 to 60%. The colors of both subpopulations correlate with host galaxy luminosity and color, with the red GCs having a steeper slope. The steeper correlation seen in the mean color of the entire GC system is driven by the increasing fraction of metal-rich GCs for more luminous galaxies.To convert color to metallicity, we also introduce a preliminary (g-z)-[Fe/H] relation calibrated to Galactic, M49 and M87 GCs. This relation is nonlinear with a steeper slope for [Fe/H] −0.8. As a result, the metallicities of the metal-poor and metal-rich GCs vary similarly with respect to galaxy luminosity and stellar mass, with relations of [Fe/H] MP ∝ L 0.16±0.04 ∝ M 0.17±0.04 ⋆ and [Fe/H] MR ∝ L 0.26±0.03 ∝ M 0.22±0.03 ⋆, respectively. Although these relations are shallower than the mass-metallicity relation predicted by wind models and observed for dwarf galaxies, they are very similar to the mass-metallicity relation for star forming galaxies in the same mass range. The offset between the two GC populations varies slowly (∝ M 0.05 ⋆ ) and is approximately 1 dex across three orders of magnitude in mass, suggesting a nearly universal amount of enrichment between the formation of the two populations of GCs. We also find that although the metal-rich GCs show a larger dispersion in color, it is the metal-poor GCs that have an equal or larger dispersion in metallicity. The similarity in the M ⋆ -[Fe/H] relations for the two populations, implies that the conditions of GC formation for metal-poor and metal-rich GCs could not have been too different. Like the color-magnitude relation, these relations derived from globular clusters present stringent constraints on the formation and evolution of early-type galaxies.