Uncovering the intrinsic shapes of elliptical galaxies. IV. Tests on simulated merger remnants

We test the methods developed in previous papers for inferring the intrinsi c shapes of elliptical galaxies, using simulated objects from N-body experi ments. The shapes of individual objects are correctly reproduced to within the statistical errors; close inspection of the results indicates a small s ystematic bias in the sense of underestimating both the triaxiality and sho rt-to-long axis ratio. We also test the estimation of parent shape distribu tions, using samples of independent, randomly oriented objects. The best re sults are statistically accurate, but on average the parent distributions a re again slightly biased in the same sense. Using the posterior probability densities for the individual objects, we estimate the magnitude of the bia s to be less than or similar to 0.1 in both shape parameters. The results s upport the continued use of these methods on real systems.