Spatially-resolved stellar kinematics of the ultra diffuse galaxy Dragonfly 44. I. Observations, kinematics, and cold dark matter halo fits

Pieter van Dokkum; Asher Wasserman; Shany Danieli; Roberto Abraham; Jean Brodie; Charlie Conroy; Duncan A. Forbes; Christopher Martin; Matt Matuszewski; Aaron J. Romanowsky; Alexa Villaume

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab2914

paper

Spatially-resolved stellar kinematics of the ultra diffuse galaxy Dragonfly 44. I. Observations, kinematics, and cold dark matter halo fits

arXiv:1904.04838 · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab2914

Abstract

We present spatially-resolved stellar kinematics of the well-studied ultra diffuse galaxy (UDG) Dragonfly 44, as determined from 25.3 hrs of observations with the Keck Cosmic Web Imager. The luminosity-weighted dispersion within the half-light radius is $σ_{1/2} = 3 3_{- 3}^{+ 3}$ km/s. There is no evidence for rotation, with $V / σ < 0.12$ (90% confidence) along the major axis, in apparent conflict with models where UDGs are the high-spin tail of the normal dwarf galaxy distribution. The spatially-averaged line profile is more peaked than a Gaussian, with Gauss-Hermite coefficient $h_{4} = 0.13 \pm 0.05$ . The mass-to-light ratio within the effective radius is $M / L = 2 6_{- 6}^{+ 7}$ , similar to other UDGs and higher by a factor of six than normal galaxies of the same luminosity. This difference between UDGs and other galaxies is, however, sensitive to the aperture that is used, and is much reduced when the $M / L$ ratios are measured within a fixed radius of 10 kpc. Dragonfly 44 has a rising velocity dispersion profile, from $σ = 2 6_{- 4}^{+ 4}$ km/s at R=0.2 kpc to $σ = 4 1_{- 8}^{+ 8}$ km/s at R=5.1 kpc. The profile can only be fit with a cuspy NFW profile if the orbital distribution has strong tangential anisotropy, with $β = - 0. 8_{- 0.5}^{+ 0.4}$ . An alternative explanation is that the dark matter profile has a core: a Di Cintio et al. (2014) density profile with a mass-dependent core provides a very good fit to the kinematics for a halo mass of $lo g (M_{200} / M_{⊙}) = 11. 2_{- 0.6}^{+ 0.6}$ and $β = - 0. 1_{- 0.3}^{+ 0.2}$ , i.e., isotropic orbits. This model predicts a slight positive kurtosis, in qualitative agreement with the measured $h_{4}$ parameter. UDGs such as Dragonfly 44 are dark matter dominated even in their centers, and can constrain the properties of dark matter in a regime where baryons usually dominate the kinematics: small spatial scales in massive halos.

arXiv commentAccepted to ApJ. Figure 7 shows off the capabilities of KCWI. The key observational result, the radial dispersion profile, is shown in Fig. 14. Figure 16 demonstrates the aperture-dependence of the M/L ratio. Figs 17 and 18 show fits to NFW profiles and Di Cintio cored profiles. People interested in the variation of the night sky spectrum might enjoy Figure 3!

Spatially-resolved stellar kinematics of the ultra diffuse galaxy Dragonfly 44. I. Observations, kinematics, and cold dark matter halo fits

Abstract

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