M. Cautun
Milky Way mass constraints from the Galactic satellite gap
Cautun, M.; Frenk, C.S.; van de Weygaert, R.; Hellwing, W.A.; Jones, B.J.T.
Authors
C.S. Frenk
R. van de Weygaert
W.A. Hellwing
B.J.T. Jones
Abstract
We use the distribution of maximum circular velocities, Vmax, of satellites in the Milky Way (MW) to constrain the virial mass, M200, of the Galactic halo under an assumed prior of a Λ cold dark matter universe. This is done by analysing the subhalo populations of a large sample of haloes found in the Millennium II cosmological simulation. The observation that the MW has at most three subhaloes with Vmax ≥ 30 km s−1 requires a halo mass M200 ≤ 1.4 × 1012 M⊙, while the existence of the Magellanic Clouds (assumed to have Vmax ≥ 60 km s−1) requires M200 ≥ 1.0 × 1012 M⊙. The first of these conditions is necessary to avoid the ‘too-big-to-fail’ problem highlighted by Boylan-Kolchin et al., while the second stems from the observation that massive satellites like the Magellanic Clouds are rare. When combining both requirements, we find that the MW halo mass must lie in the range 0.25 ≤ M200/(1012 M⊙) ≤ 1.4 at 90 per cent confidence. The gap in the abundance of Galactic satellites between 30 km s−1 ≤ Vmax ≤ 60 km s−1 places our galaxy in the tail of the expected satellite distribution.
Citation
Cautun, M., Frenk, C., van de Weygaert, R., Hellwing, W., & Jones, B. (2014). Milky Way mass constraints from the Galactic satellite gap. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 445(2), 2049-2060. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu1849
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Sep 4, 2014 |
Publication Date | Dec 1, 2014 |
Deposit Date | Oct 21, 2014 |
Publicly Available Date | Mar 28, 2024 |
Journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
Print ISSN | 0035-8711 |
Electronic ISSN | 1365-2966 |
Publisher | Royal Astronomical Society |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 445 |
Issue | 2 |
Pages | 2049-2060 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu1849 |
Keywords | Galaxy: abundances, Galaxy: halo, Dark matter. |
Files
Published Journal Article
(2.4 Mb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2014 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
You might also like
The impact of the Large Magellanic Cloud on dark matter direct detection signals
(2023)
Journal Article
Cosmic Ballet III: Halo spin evolution in the cosmic web
(2021)
Journal Article
The twisted dark matter halo of the Milky Way
(2020)
Journal Article
The Milky Way total mass profile as inferred from Gaia DR2
(2020)
Journal Article
Evolution of galactic planes of satellites in the eagle simulation
(2019)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search