The dynamics of the outer parts of omega Centauri

Abstract

The multi-object fibre-fed spectrograph AAOmega at the Anglo-Australian Telescope has been used to establish and measure accurate (<1 kms-1) radial velocities for a new sample of members in the outer parts of the stellar system omega Centauri. The new sample more than doubles the number of known members with precise velocities that lie between 25' and 45' from the cluster center. Combining this sample with earlier work confirms that the line-of-sight velocity dispersion of omega Cen remains approximately constant at ~6.5 kms-1 in the outer parts of the cluster, which contain only a small fraction of the total cluster stellar mass. It is argued that the approximately constant velocity dispersion in the outer regions is most likely a consequence of external influences, such as the tidal shock heating that occurs each time omega Cen crosses the Galactic plane. There is therefore no requirement to invoke dark matter or non-standard gravitational theories.

Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 29 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (4)

• The Dartmouth Stellar Evolution Database
• Exploring Halo Substructure with Giant Stars: Substructure in the Local Halo as Seen in the Grid Giant Star Survey Including Extended Tidal Debris from Omega Centauri
• The Rotation of Sub-Populations in omega Centauri
• A Spectroscopic Survey for Omega Centauri Members at and beyond the Cluster Tidal Radius

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