Confronting the Diversity Problem: The Limits of Galaxy Rotation Curves as a tool to Understand Dark Matter Profiles

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Autori principali: Sands, Isabel S., Hopkins, Philip F., Shen, Xuejian, Boylan-Kolchin, Michael, Bullock, James, Faucher-Giguere, Claude-Andre, Mercado, Francisco J., Moreno, Jorge, Necib, Lina, Ou, Xiaowei, Wellons, Sarah, Wetzel, Andrew
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Sands, Isabel S.
Hopkins, Philip F.
Shen, Xuejian
Boylan-Kolchin, Michael
Bullock, James
Faucher-Giguere, Claude-Andre
Mercado, Francisco J.
Moreno, Jorge
Necib, Lina
Ou, Xiaowei
Wellons, Sarah
Wetzel, Andrew
author_facet Sands, Isabel S.
Hopkins, Philip F.
Shen, Xuejian
Boylan-Kolchin, Michael
Bullock, James
Faucher-Giguere, Claude-Andre
Mercado, Francisco J.
Moreno, Jorge
Necib, Lina
Ou, Xiaowei
Wellons, Sarah
Wetzel, Andrew
contents While galaxy rotation curves provide one of the most powerful methods for measuring dark matter profiles in the inner regions of rotation-supported galaxies, at the dwarf scale there are factors that can complicate this analysis. Given the expectation of a universal profile in dark matter-only simulations, the diversity of observed rotation curves has become an often-discussed issue in Lambda Cold Dark Matter cosmology on galactic scales. We analyze a suite of Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) simulations of $10^{10}-10^{12}$ $M_\odot$ halos with standard cold dark matter, and compare the true circular velocity to rotation curve reconstructions. We find that, for galaxies with well-ordered gaseous disks, the measured rotation curve may deviate from true circular velocity by at most 10% within the radius of the disk. However, non-equilibrium behavior, non-circular motions, and non-thermal and non-kinetic stresses may cause much larger discrepancies of 50% or more. Most rotation curve reconstructions underestimate the true circular velocity, while some reconstructions transiently over-estimate it in the central few kiloparsecs due to dynamical phenomena. We further demonstrate that the features that contribute to these failures are not always visibly obvious in HI observations. If such dwarf galaxies are included in galaxy catalogs, they may give rise to the appearance of "artificial" rotation curve diversity that does not reflect the true variation in underlying dark matter profiles.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_16247
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Confronting the Diversity Problem: The Limits of Galaxy Rotation Curves as a tool to Understand Dark Matter Profiles
Sands, Isabel S.
Hopkins, Philip F.
Shen, Xuejian
Boylan-Kolchin, Michael
Bullock, James
Faucher-Giguere, Claude-Andre
Mercado, Francisco J.
Moreno, Jorge
Necib, Lina
Ou, Xiaowei
Wellons, Sarah
Wetzel, Andrew
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
While galaxy rotation curves provide one of the most powerful methods for measuring dark matter profiles in the inner regions of rotation-supported galaxies, at the dwarf scale there are factors that can complicate this analysis. Given the expectation of a universal profile in dark matter-only simulations, the diversity of observed rotation curves has become an often-discussed issue in Lambda Cold Dark Matter cosmology on galactic scales. We analyze a suite of Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) simulations of $10^{10}-10^{12}$ $M_\odot$ halos with standard cold dark matter, and compare the true circular velocity to rotation curve reconstructions. We find that, for galaxies with well-ordered gaseous disks, the measured rotation curve may deviate from true circular velocity by at most 10% within the radius of the disk. However, non-equilibrium behavior, non-circular motions, and non-thermal and non-kinetic stresses may cause much larger discrepancies of 50% or more. Most rotation curve reconstructions underestimate the true circular velocity, while some reconstructions transiently over-estimate it in the central few kiloparsecs due to dynamical phenomena. We further demonstrate that the features that contribute to these failures are not always visibly obvious in HI observations. If such dwarf galaxies are included in galaxy catalogs, they may give rise to the appearance of "artificial" rotation curve diversity that does not reflect the true variation in underlying dark matter profiles.
title Confronting the Diversity Problem: The Limits of Galaxy Rotation Curves as a tool to Understand Dark Matter Profiles
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.16247