Mass discrepancies in galaxies: dark matter and alternatives

Neutral hydrogen line observations of the extended rotation curves of spiral galaxies imply that there exist significant discrepancies between the luminous and dynamical mass beyond the bright optical discs. This means either that galaxies contain significant quantities of non-luminous matter (matter with a mass-to-light ratio very much higher than that of ordinary stars), or that the law of gravity on the scale of galaxies is not the usual Newtonian inverse square law. Attempts to account for the observed discrepancy in the context of these two explanations are reviewed here with emphasis given to the second and less conventional alternative. It is argued that the standard picture of spiral galaxy halo and disc formation in the context of cold dark matter cannot account for the observed systematics of the discrepancy — notably rotation curves which are seen to be flat and featureless from the bright inner regions where the visible matter dominates the dynamics (in some cases overwhelmingly) to the outer regions where the dark halo dominates. It is demonstrated that in those galaxies with well-observed rotation curves, the discrepancy apparently appears below a critical acceleration. Any dark matter explanation of the discrepancy must account for this fact. Moreover, this would also eliminate empirically motivated modifications of Newton's law in which the deviation from 1/r occurs beyond a fundamental length scale. The suggestion by Milgrom in which the force law becomes essentially 1/r below a critical acceleration (MOND) can account for most of the observed systematics of galaxy rotation curves and, significantly, leads to the observed luminosity-velocity relationship in spiral galaxies (the Tully-Fisher law). Generally covariant theories of gravity which predict this phenomenology in the weak-field limit are described. Although there is not yet a theory which obviously meets all of the requirements for a physically viable alternative to dark matter, a generalized scalar-tensor theory of the form suggested by Bekenstein (phase coupling gravitation) is the currently leading candidate and has the advantage of being testable locally.     

Rotation Curves of Galaxies in Various Space Environments

A sample of giant Sb-Sc spiral galaxies for which there are highly accurate and extended rotation curves was considered. Having divided the galaxies into three groups as a function of the overall spatial density of luminosity (mass) within 0.5 Mpc ( _L ), we investigated the characteristics of the rotation curves as functions of _L . It turned out that for such massive galaxies, the shape of the rotation curve (the logarithmic gradient) and the Tully-Fisher relation do not depend on the overall space environment. The only difference is that the rotation curves of galaxies in regions with high _L can be traced out to smaller relative distances from the nucleus, on the average. This may be related to destruction of the outer regions of their gaseous disks in gravitational interaction with surrounding galaxies.     

On the understanding of the observed flat or slowly rising rotation curves in large disk galaxies

Recent observations of the rotation curves of large disk galaxies of all Hubble-types have shown that they possess flat or slowly rising rotation curves up to large distances from the centre. It has been suggested here that such rotation curves are understood under normal fluid dynamical considerations provided that viscous (and/or magnetic) transfer of mass and angular momentum from inner to outer regions of these galaxies is efficient. Flow of gas from halo to the disk in regions close to the axis of rotation is also suggested. The existence of rising rotation curves in some galaxies with varying gradients and flat rotation curves in others suggest that probably these galaxies are not coeval. The formers are probably of more recent origin.     

Do morphological properties of interacting galaxies indicate that the latter are topological abelian higgs vorto-sources (vorto-sinks)?

We propose an Abelian Higgs model for spiral galaxies in which the latter are treated as topologically stable magneticvorto-sources (-sinks). The model is characterized by the minimum coupling between the electromagnetic vector potential and a scalar, complex-valued Higgs field that results - for an idealized cylindrically symmetric case - in a perpendicular to the galaxy's plane distribution of magnetic field strength whose total flux is a discrete-valued quantity - aninteger multiple of the elementary flux unit. Adopting the hypothesis that spiral arms trace the curves of a constant phase of the Higgs field we demonstrate that, for an almost-everywhere divergence-free vector potential, the arms acquire the observationally well-established form of logarithmic spirals whose woundness is here of an electromagnetic origin in the sense that it depends on the ratio between the specific volume-divergence of a galaxy and its total magnetic flux. The hypothesis further implies that the number of spiral arms is justtwice as that of magnetic flux quanta a galaxy possesses; the observed preponderance of two-armed spirals then simply reflects the fact that most galaxies carry single flux quantum which is energetically favourable for the vorto-sources (-sinks) whose disk-to-bulge radius ratio > 1. The latter property also leads to the process of galaxyfragmentation in the sense that a galaxy endowed withp magnetic flux quanta should fission into the topologically equivalent configuration consisting ofp singly-quantized galaxies.A unique possibility to test our model is provided by physically paired galaxies. Considering the simplest configuration consisting of spirals lying in the same plane and having equal in magnitude fluxes and volume-divergences we distinguish four topologically different distributions of the Higgs field phase which fairly well capture observed morphologies exhibited by double galaxies; we find, in particular, that of most frequent occurrence seem to be couples with anti-parallel orientation of magnetic field.Finally, we address the question of the periodicity in the distribution of galaxy redshifts and show that a discrete-valuedness of themass of spiral galaxies resulting from our model may serve as a starting point to solve this puzzling effect.     

Luminosity distributions within rich clusters — III. A comparative study of seven Abell/ACO clusters

We recover the luminosity distributions over a wide range of absolute magnitude (−24.5 <  M _R  < −16.5) for a sample of seven rich southern galaxy clusters. We find a large variation in the ratio of dwarf to giant galaxies, DGR: 0.8 ≤ DGR ≤ 3.1. This variation is shown to be inconsistent with a ubiquitous cluster luminosity function. The DGR shows a smaller variation from cluster to cluster in the inner regions ( r  ≲ 0.56 Mpc). Outside these regions we find the DGR to be strongly anticorrelated with the mean local projected galaxy density, with the DGR increasing towards lower densities. In addition, the DGR in the outer regions shows some correlation with Bautz–Morgan type. Radial analysis of the clusters indicates that the dwarf galaxies are less centrally clustered than the giants, and they form a significant halo around clusters. We conclude that measurements of the total cluster luminosity distribution based on the inner core alone are likely to be severe underestimates of the dwarf component, the integrated cluster luminosity and the contribution of galaxy masses to the cluster's total mass. Further work is required to quantify this. The observational evidence that the unrelaxed, lower density outer regions of clusters are dwarf-rich adds credence to the recent evidence and conjecture that the field is a predominantly dwarf-rich environment, and that the dwarf galaxies are under-represented in measures of the local field luminosity function.     

Rotation velocity and neutral hydrogen distribution dependency on magnetic field strength in spiral galaxies

The rotation velocity of a simulated plasma galaxy is compared to the rotation curves of Sc type spiral galaxies. Both show flat rotation curves with velocities of the order of several hundred kilometers per second, modified by E × B instabilities. Maps of the strength and distribution of galactic magnetic fields and neutral hydrogen regions, as-well-as as predictions by particle-in-cell simulations run in the late 1970s, are compared to Effelsberg observations.Agreement between simulation and observation is best when the simulation galaxy masses are identical to the observational masses of spiral galaxies. No dark matter is needed.     

The evolution of disk galaxies in clusters

We are carrying out a programme to measure the evolution of the stellar and dynamical masses and M/L ratios for a sizeable sample of morphologically-classified disk galaxies in rich galaxy clusters at 0.2 < z < 0.9. Using FORS2 at the VLT we are obtaining rotation curves for the cluster spirals so that their Tully-Fisher relation can be studied as a function of redshift and compared with that of field spirals. We already have rotation curves for ∼ 10 cluster spirals at z = 0.83, and 25 field spirals at lower redshifts and we plan to increase this sample by one order of magnitude. We present here the first results of our study, and discuss the implications of our data in the context of current ideas and models of galaxy formation and evolution. This revised version was published online in September 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

GHASP: an Hα kinematic survey of spiral and irregular galaxies – V. Dark matter distribution in 36 nearby spiral galaxies

The results obtained from a study of the mass distribution of 36 spiral galaxies are presented. The galaxies were observed using Fabry–Perot interferometry as part of the GHASP survey. The main aim of obtaining high-resolution Hα 2D velocity fields is to define more accurately the rising part of the rotation curves which should allow to better constrain the parameters of the mass distribution. The Hα velocities were combined with low resolution H  i data from the literature, when available. Combining the kinematical data with photometric data, mass models were derived from these rotation curves using two different functional forms for the halo: an isothermal sphere (ISO) and a Navarro–Frenk–White (NFW) profile. For the galaxies already modelled by other authors, the results tend to agree. Our results point at the existence of a constant density core in the centre of the dark matter haloes rather than a cuspy core, whatever the type of the galaxy from Sab to Im. This extends to all types the result already obtained by other authors studying dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies but would necessitate a larger sample of galaxies to conclude more strongly. Whatever model is used (ISO or NFW), small core radius haloes have higher central densities, again for all morphological types. We confirm different halo scaling laws, such as the correlations between the core radius and the central density of the halo with the absolute magnitude of a galaxy: low-luminosity galaxies have small core radius and high central density. We find that the product of the central density with the core radius of the dark matter halo is nearly constant, whatever the model and whatever the absolute magnitude of the galaxy. This suggests that the halo surface density is independent from the galaxy type.     

A constant dark matter halo surface density in galaxies

We confirm and extend the recent finding that the central surface density  μ_0D≡ r ₀ρ₀  of galaxy dark matter haloes, where r ₀ and  ρ₀  are the halo core radius and central density, is nearly constant and independent of galaxy luminosity. Based on the co-added rotation curves (RCs) of ∼1000 spiral galaxies, the mass models of individual dwarf irregular and spiral galaxies of late and early types with high-quality RCs, and the galaxy–galaxy weak-lensing signals from a sample of spiral and elliptical galaxies, we find that  log μ_0D= 2.15 ± 0.2  in units of  log(M_⊙ pc⁻²)  . We also show that the observed kinematics of Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxies are consistent with this value. Our results are obtained for galactic systems spanning over 14 mag, belonging to different Hubble types and whose mass profiles have been determined by several independent methods. In the same objects, the approximate constancy of  μ_0D  is in sharp contrast to the systematical variations, by several orders of magnitude, of galaxy properties, including  ρ₀  and central stellar surface density.     

Formation of leading spiral arms in retrograde galaxy encounters

We study, theoretically and withN-body simulations, the formation of spiral structures in retrograde galaxy encounters. A one-armed leading spiral dominates in a disc if (i) the tidal perturbation from the retrograde companion is large enough, and (ii) the disc is surrounded by a massive halo. From the literature we find that very few spirals in a sample of galaxies with a large companion have leading spiral arms. A possible reason for this is that very few spiral galaxies have a halo with a larger mass than the disc mass.     

Dynamical friction on a satellite of a disk galaxy: The circular orbit

In a previous paper, we have studied dynamical friction during a parabolic passage of a companion galaxy past a disk galaxy. This paper continues with the study of satellites in circular orbits around the disk galaxy. Simulations of orbit decay in a self gravitating disk are compared with estimates based on two-body scattering theories; the theories are found to give a satisfactory explanation of the orbital changes. The disk friction is strongly dependent on the sense of rotation of the companion relative to the rotation of the disk galaxy as well as on the amount of mass in a spherical halo. The greatest amount of dynamical friction occurs in direct motion if no spherical halo is present. Then the infall time from the edge of the disk is about one half of the orbital period of the disk edge. A halo twice as massive as the disk increases the infall time four fold. The results of Quinn and Goodman, obtained with a non-self-gravitating method, agree well with our experiments with massive halos (Q ₀ 1.5), but are not usable in a more general case. We give analytic expressions for calculating the disk friction in galaxies of different disk/halo mass ratios.     

A new scalar tensor theory for gravity and the flat rotation curves of spiral galaxies

In this paper we reproduce flat rotation curves of spiral galaxies by discussing a scalar tensor theory of gravity which includes the Higgs field as scalar field. The galaxy density distribution is assumed to be homogeneous or polytropic and in the galaxy core there exists a large concentrated mass.     

Origins of galactic spiral structures

Theories of galactic structure are reviewed briefly before comparing them with recent observations. Also reviewed is the evidence for an intergalactic magnetic field and its possible effects on gas concentrations and patterns of star creation, including spiral arms. It is then shown that normal spiral galaxies may be divided into the M51-type and others. The rare M51-type have Hi gas arms coincident with unusually filamentary and luminous optical arms; they also have a companion galaxy. The remaining great majority of spirals have no well-defined gas arms and their optical arms are irregular, broader and less luminous; they have no companion galaxy. It appears that without exception the half-dozen or so galaxies whose structures appear to support the density-wave theory show one or more of the characteristics of the rare type of spiral, and that the three principal confirmations of the spiral-wave idea (M51, M81, M101) have companions which may account for their arms. Toomre has rejected this idea on the grounds that his models do not agree with the observed structures. It is shown that these models are inadequate in two major respects, and when replaced by magneto-tidal models using non-uniform gas disks one might expect agreement. The original hydromagnetic model of spiral arms is now reserved for non-interacting galaxies, of which M33 might be taken as a prototype. The model predicts broad or massive optical arms and no corresponding arms of neutral hydrogen, as observed.     

Testing the nature of S0 galaxies using planetary nebula kinematics in NGC 1023

We investigate the manner in which lenticular galaxies are formed by studying their stellar kinematics: an S0 formed from a fading spiral galaxy should display similar cold outer disc kinematics to its progenitor, while an S0 formed in a minor merger should be more dominated by random motions. In a pilot study, an attempt to distinguish between these scenarios, we have measured the planetary nebula (PN) kinematics of the nearby S0 system NGC 1023. Using the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph, we have detected and measured the line-of-sight velocities of 204 candidate planetary nebulae (PNe) in the field of this galaxy. Out to intermediate radii, the system displays the kinematics of a normal rotationally supported disc system. After correction of its rotational velocities for asymmetric drift, the galaxy lies just below the spiral galaxy Tully–Fisher relation, as one would expect for a fading system. However, at larger radii the kinematics undergo a gradual but major transition to random motion with little rotation. This transition does not seem to reflect a change in the viewing geometry or the presence of a distinct halo component, since the number counts of PNe follow the same simple exponential decline as the stellar continuum with the same projected disc ellipticity out to large radii. The galaxy's small companion, NGC 1023A, does not seem to be large enough to have caused the observed modification either. This combination of properties would seem to indicate a complex evolutionary history in either the transition to form an S0 or in the past life of the spiral galaxy from which the S0 formed. More data sets of this type from both spirals and S0s are needed in order to definitively determine the relationship between these types of system.     

Cold gas accretion in galaxies

Evidence for the accretion of cold gas in galaxies has been rapidly accumulating in the past years. HI observations of galaxies and their environment have brought to light new facts and phenomena which are evidence of ongoing or recent accretion: (1) A large number of galaxies are accompanied by gas-rich dwarfs or are surrounded by HI cloud complexes, tails and filaments. This suggests ongoing minor mergers and recent arrival of external gas. It may be regarded, therefore, as direct evidence of cold gas accretion in the local universe. It is probably the same kind of phenomenon of material infall as the stellar streams observed in the halos of our galaxy and M 31. (2) Considerable amounts of extra-planar HI have been found in nearby spiral galaxies. While a large fraction of this gas is undoubtedly produced by galactic fountains, it is likely that a part of it is of extragalactic origin. Also the Milky Way has extra-planar gas complexes: the Intermediate- and High-Velocity Clouds (IVCs and HVCs). (3) Spirals are known to have extended and warped outer layers of HI. It is not clear how these have formed, and how and for how long the warps can be sustained. Gas infall has been proposed as the origin. (4) The majority of galactic disks are lopsided in their morphology as well as in their kinematics. Also here recent accretion has been advocated as a possible cause. In our view, accretion takes place both through the arrival and merging of gas-rich satellites and through gas infall from the intergalactic medium (IGM). The new gas could be added to the halo or be deposited in the outer parts of galaxies and form reservoirs for replenishing the inner parts and feeding star formation. The infall may have observable effects on the disk such as bursts of star formation and lopsidedness. We infer a mean “visible” accretion rate of cold gas in galaxies of at least . In order to reach the accretion rates needed to sustain the observed star formation (), additional infall of large amounts of gas from the IGM seems to be required.     

Inferring dark halo structure from observed scaling laws of late-type galaxies and LSBs

We re-examine the Fall & Efstathiou scenario for galaxy formation, including the dark halo gravitational reaction to the formation of the baryon disc, as well as continuous variations in the intrinsic halo density profile. The recently published rotation curves of low surface brightness (LSB) and dwarf galaxies together with previously known scaling relations provide sufficient information on the present-day structure of late-type disc galaxies to invert the problem. By requiring that the models reproduce all the observational restrictions we can fully constrain the initial conditions of galaxy formation, with a minimum of assumptions, in particular without the need to specify a cold dark matter (CDM) halo profile. This allows one to solve for all the initial conditions, in terms of the halo density profile, the baryon fraction and the total angular momentum. We find that a unique initial halo shape is sufficient to accurately reproduce the rotation curves of both LSB and normal late-type spiral galaxies. This unique halo profile differs substantially from that found in standard CDM models. A galactic baryon fraction of 0.065 is found. The initial value of the dimensionless angular momentum is seen to be the principal discriminator between the galaxy classes we examine. The present-day scalings between structural parameters are seen to originate in the initial conditions.     

Far-infrared properties of Virgo spirals

Using a sample of 109 spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster we show that Hi deficient galaxies have cooler far-infrared colour temperatures and lower 60 and 100 m fluxes than those with normal Hi content. We suggest that these results can be explained if the dust content of Hi deficient galaxies have been reduced by a factor of two compared to field galaxies.     

The stellar populations of spiral galaxies

We have used a large sample of low-inclination spiral galaxies with radially resolved optical and near-infrared photometry to investigate trends in star formation history with radius as a function of galaxy structural parameters. A maximum-likelihood method was used to match all the available photometry of our sample to the colours predicted by stellar population synthesis models. The use of simplistic star formation histories, uncertainties in the stellar population models and considering the importance of dust all compromise the absolute ages and metallicities derived in this work; however, our conclusions are robust in a relative sense. We find that most spiral galaxies have stellar population gradients, in the sense that their inner regions are older and more metal rich than their outer regions. Our main conclusion is that the surface density of a galaxy drives its star formation history, perhaps through a local density dependence in the star formation law. The mass of a galaxy is a less important parameter; the age of a galaxy is relatively unaffected by its mass; however, the metallicity of galaxies depends on both surface density and mass. This suggests that galaxy‐mass-dependent feedback is an important process in the chemical evolution of galaxies. In addition, there is significant cosmic scatter suggesting that mass and density may not be the only parameters affecting the star formation history of a galaxy.     

Recent investigations on disk galaxies in massive halos

Numerical experiments undertaken to investigate the longevity and behavior of dark-lane elliptical galaxies are described. This is dynamically the same problem as a disk galaxy in a massive halo. Spiral galaxies are disks from a dynamical point of view. A disk of particles embedded in a self-consistent galaxy provides the basic model used for the experiments. This model is applicable to ordinary disk galaxies if the disk is interpreted as the visible galaxy and the galaxy is interpreted as the massive halo thought to be present around disk galaxies. Fully three-dimensional fully self-consistentn-body computer programs that can handle 100,000 particles are used for the experiments. The background galaxy is oblate, and the disk is inclined to the axis of the oblate galaxy, so the disk precesses differentially to produce a warp. A surprising result is that the galaxy center shifted, leaving the disk center orbiting around the galaxy center. This produces interesting phenomena reminiscent of observations in the region of the Galactic center.     

The structure and evolution of M 51-type galaxies

We discuss the integrated kinematic parameters of 20 M 51-type binary galaxies. A comparison of the orbital masses of the galaxies with the sum of the individual masses suggests that moderately massive dark halos surround bright spiral galaxies. The relative velocities of the galaxies in binary systems were found to decrease with increasing relative luminosity of the satellite. We obtained evidence that the Tully-Fisher relation for binary members could be flatter than that for local field galaxies. An enhanced star formation rate in the binary members may be responsible for this effect. In most binary systems, the direction of the orbital motion of the satellite coincides with the direction of the rotation of the main galaxy. Seven candidates for distant M 51-type objects were found in the Northern and Southern Hubble Deep Fields. A comparison of this number with the statistics of nearby galaxies provides evidence for the rapid evolution of the space density of M 51-type galaxies with redshift z. We assume that M 51-type binary systems could be formed through the capture of a satellite by a massive spiral galaxy. It is also possible that the main galaxy and its satellite in some of the systems have a common cosmological origin.