Astro-Ph: The scatter about the "Universal" dwarf spheroidal mass profile

PhD student, Michelle L. M. Collins, working with Scott Chapman (IoA, Cambridge) and members of the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PAndAS) (including me), has had her paper on the study of the size of dwarf galaxies accepted for publication in MNRAS. This paper shows further evidence that the dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way are different from those around its sister, the Andromeda Galaxy, and suggests that there must have been some difference in the way these two similar galaxies formed and evolved. Well done Michelle!!!

The scatter about the "Universal" dwarf spheroidal mass profile: A kinematic study of the M31 satellites, And V and And VI

M. L. M. Collins, S. C. Chapman, R. M. Rich, R. A. Ibata, M. J. Irwin, J. PeƱarrubia, N. Arimoto, A. M. Brooks, G. F. Lewis, A. W. McConnachie, K. Venn

While the satellites of the Milky Way (MW) have been shown to be largely consistent in terms of their mass contained within one half--light radius (M_{half}) with a "Universal" mass profile, a number of M31 satellites are found to be inconsistent with such relations, and seem kinematically colder in their central regions than their MW cousins. In this work, we present new kinematic and updated structural properties for two M31 dSphs, And V and And VI using data from the Keck Low Resolution Imaging Spectrograph (LRIS) and the DEep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS) instruments and the Subaru Suprime-Cam imager. We measure systemic velocities of v_r=-393.1+/-4.2km/s and -344.8+/-2.5km/s, and dispersions of sigma_v=11.5{+5.3}{-4.4}km/s and sigma_v=9.4{+3.2}{-2.4}km/s for And V and And VI respectively, meaning these two objects are consistent with the trends in sigma_v and r_{half} set by their MW counterparts. We also investigate the nature of this scatter about the MW dSph mass profiles for the "Classical" (i.e. M_V<-8) MW and M31 dSphs. When comparing both the "classical" MW and M31 dSphs to the best--fit mass profiles in the size--velocity dispersion plane, we find general scatter in both the positive (i.e. hotter) and negative (i.e. colder) directions from these profiles. However, barring one exception (CVnI) only the M31 dSphs are found to scatter towards a colder regime, and, excepting the And I dSph, only MW objects scatter to hotter dispersions. We also note that the scatter for the combined population is greater than expected from measurement errors alone. We assess this divide in the context of the differing disc-to-halo mass (i.e. stars and baryons to total virial mass) ratios of the two hosts and argue that the underlying mass profiles for dSphs differ from galaxy to galaxy, and are modified by the baryonic component of the host. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Falling into a black hole: Just what do you see?

Journey to the Far-Side of the Sun

Proton: a life story