Is there a "too big to fail" problem in the field?

Abstract

We use the Arecibo legacy fast ALFA (ALFALFA) 21cm survey to measure the number density of galaxies as a function of their rotational velocity, $V_{\mathrm{rot},\mathrm{HI}}$ (as inferred from the width of their 21cm emission line). Based on the measured velocity function we statistically connect galaxies with their host halo, via abundance matching. In a lambda cold dark matter ($\Lambda$CDM) cosmology, dwarf galaxies are expected to be hosted by halos that are significantly more massive than indicated by the measured galactic velocity; if smaller halos were allowed to host galaxies, then ALFALFA would measure a much higher galactic number density. We then seek observational verification of this predicted trend by analyzing the kinematics of a literature sample of gas-rich dwarf galaxies. We find that galaxies with $V_{\mathrm{rot},\mathrm{HI}}\lesssim 25$ $\mathrm{km}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ are kinematically incompatible with their predicted $\Lambda$CDM host halos, in the sense that hosts are too massive to be accommodated within the measured galactic rotation curves. This issue is analogous to the "too big to fail" problem faced by the bright satellites of the Milky Way, but here it concerns extreme dwarf galaxies in the field. Consequently, solutions based on satellite-specific processes are not applicable in this context. Our result confirms the findings of previous studies based on optical survey data and addresses a number of observational systematics present in these works. Furthermore, we point out the assumptions and uncertainties that could strongly affect our conclusions. We show that the two most important among them -namely baryonic effects on the abundances of halos and on the rotation curves of halos- do not seem capable of resolving the reported discrepancy.

v3 matches the version published in A&A. Main differences with v2 are in Secs 3.2 & 4.4 and the addition of Appendix B. 11 figures, 14 pages (+2 appendices)

References in corpus (22)

• Too big to fail? The puzzling darkness of massive Milky Way subhaloes
• High-Resolution Rotation Curves and Galaxy Mass Models from THINGS
• Massloss of galaxies due to a UV-background
• Updated Nearby Galaxy Catalog
• A mass-dependent density profile for dark matter haloes including the influence of galaxy formation
• The M31 Velocity Vector. II. Radial Orbit Towards the Milky Way and Implied Local Group Mass
• Search for TeV Gamma-ray Emission from GRB 100621A, an extremely bright GRB in X-rays, with H.E.S.S
• Too Big to Fail in the Local Group
• FIGGS: Faint Irregular Galaxies GMRT Survey - Overview, observations and first results
• The rotation curves shapes of late-type dwarf galaxies
• Bent by baryons: the low mass galaxy-halo relation
• Constraints on the Dark Matter Particle Mass from the Number of Milky Way Satellites
• The velocity function in the local environment from LCDM and LWDM constrained simulations
• The abundance of (not just) dark matter haloes
• M31 Satellite Masses Compared to LCDM Subhaloes
• The emptiness of voids: yet another over-abundance problem for the LCDM model
• The Void Phenomenon Explained
• Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relation for Extremely Low Mass Galaxies
• A Catalog of Ultra-compact High Velocity Clouds from the ALFALFA Survey: Local Group Galaxy Candidates?
• Expanded haloes, abundance matching and too-big-to-fail in the Local Group
• ALFALFA Discovery of the Nearby Gas-rich Dwarf Galaxy Leo P. V. Neutral Gas Dynamics and Kinematics
• A unified solution to the small scale problems of the $\Lambda$CDM model

Cited by in corpus (16)

• The universal rotation curve of dwarf disk galaxies
• Supermassive Black Holes from Ultra-Strongly Self-Interacting Dark Matter
• Hidden Sector Hydrogen as Dark Matter: Small-scale Structure Formation Predictions and the Importance of Hyperfine Interactions
• The Dragonfly Nearby Galaxies Survey. III. The Luminosity Function of the M101 Group
• keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter from Singlet Scalar Decays: The Most General Case
• Expanded haloes, abundance matching and too-big-to-fail in the Local Group
• Star formation triggered by galaxy interactions in modified gravity
• Simulations of galaxies formed in warm dark matter halos of masses at the filtering scale
• SHIELD: Neutral Gas Kinematics and Dynamics
• Using CMB spectral distortions to distinguish between dark matter solutions to the small-scale crisis
• Spectroscopic Confusion: Its Impact on Current and Future Extragalactic HI Surveys
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: The Low-Redshift Stellar Mass Tully-Fisher Relation
• Production of heavy sterile neutrinos from vector boson decay at electroweak temperatures
• Identifying galaxy candidates in WSRT HI imaging of ultra-compact high velocity clouds
• Universal subhalo accretion in cold and warm dark matter cosmologies
• Constraining cosmology with the velocity function of low-mass galaxies