The SBF survey of galaxy distances. IV. SBF magnitudes, colors, and distances

We report data for I-band surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) magnitudes, (V - I) colors, and distance moduli for 300 galaxies. The survey contains E , S0, and early-type spiral galaxies in the proportions of 49: 42: 9 and is essentially complete for E galaxies to Hubble velocities of 2000 km s(-1), with a substantial sampling of E galaxies out to 4000 km s(-1). The median error in distance modulus is 0.22 mag. We also present two new results fro m the survey. (1) We compare the mean peculiar flow velocity (bulk flow) im plied by our distances with predictions of typical cold dark matter transfe r functions as a function of scale, and we find very good agreement with co ld, dark matter cosmologies if the transfer function scale parameter Gamma and the power spectrum normalization sigma (8) are related by sigma (8) Gam ma (-0.25) approximate to 2 +/- 0.5. Derived directly from velocities, this result is independent of the distribution of galaxies or models for biasin g. This modest bulk flow contradicts reports of large-scale, large-amplitud e flows in the similar to 200 Mpc diameter volume surrounding our survey vo lume. (2) We present a distance-independent measure of absolute galaxy lumi nosity, (N) over bar and show how it correlates with galaxy properties such as color and velocity dispersion, demonstrating its utility for measuring galaxy distances through large and unknown extinction.