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Register a new userLocal dark energy: HST evidence from the vicinity of the M 81/M 82 galaxy group
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The Hubble Space Telescope observations of the nearby galaxy group M 81/M 82 and its vicinity indicate that the expansion outflow around the group is dominated by the antigravity of the dark energy background. The local density of dark energy in the area is estimated to be near the global dark energy density or perhaps exactly equal to it. This conclusion agrees with our previous results for the Local group vicinity and the vicinity of the Cen A/M 83 group.
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Recent VLA observations pointed at dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies in the M 81 group reveal a hitherto hidden population of extremely low mass (~1e5 Msol) HI clouds with no obvious optical counterparts. We have searched 10 fields in the M81 group totalling 2.2 square degree, both targeting known dwarf spheroidal galaxies and blank fields around the central triplet. Our observations show that the new population of low-mass HI clouds appears to be confined to a region toward the South-East of the central triplet (at distances of ~100 kpc from M 81). Possible explanations for these free-floating HI clouds are that they are related to the dSphs found to the South-East of M 81, that they belong to the galaxies of the M 81 triplet (equivalent to HVCs), that they are of primordial nature and provide fresh, unenriched material falling into the M 81 group, or that they are tidal debris from the 3-body interaction involving M 81-M 82-NGC 3077. Based on circumstantial evidence, we currently favour the latter explanation.
In an XMM-Newton raster observation of the bright Local Group spiral galaxy M 33 we study the population of X-ray sources (X-ray binaries, supernova remnants) down to a 0.2--4.5 keV luminosity of 10^35 erg/s -- more than a factor of 10 deeper than earlier ROSAT observations. EPIC hardness ratios and optical and radio information are used to distinguish between different source classes. The survey detects 408 sources in an area of 0.80 square degree. We correlate these newly detected sources with earlier M 33 X-ray catalogues and information from optical, infra-red and radio wavelengths. As M 33 sources we detect 21 supernova remnants (SNR) and 23 SNR candidates, 5 super-soft sources, and 2 X-ray binaries (XRBs). There are 267 sources classified as hard, which may either be XRBs or Crab-like SNRs in M 33 or background AGN. The 44 confirmed and candidate SNRs more than double the number of X-ray detected SNRs in M 33. 16 of these are proposed as SNR candidates from the X-ray data for the first time. On the other hand, there are several sources not connected to M 33: five foreground stars, 30 foreground star candidates, 12 active galactic nucleus candidates, one background galaxy and one background galaxy candidate. Extrapolating from deep field observations we would expect 175 to 210 background sources in this field. This indicates that about half of the sources detected are sources within M 33.
We present the initial results from an [O III] lambda 5007 survey for intra-group planetary nebulae in the M 81 group of galaxies. A total of 0.36 square degrees of the survey have been analyzed thus far, and a total of four intra-group candidates have been detected. These data allow us to probe the physics of galaxy interactions in small groups, and give us an upper limit for the density of intracluster starlight. We find that the M 81 group has less than 3% of its stars in an intra-group component; this is much less than the fraction found in richer galaxy clusters.
We present spectral and timing results from a long (130 ks) XMM-NEWTON EPIC observation of the nucleus of the Seyfert/LINER galaxy M 81. During the observation the X-ray flux varied by 20%, but there was no significant change in spectral shape. The 2-10 keV spectrum is well described by a power law continuum and three narrow Fe K emission lines at 6.4, 6.7 and 6.96 keV. The three emission lines have equivalent widths of 39, 47, and 37 eV respectively. The ratios of the three lines are thus more similar to those observed from the Galactic Centre region than to those typically observed from Seyfert galaxies. The high ionization lines most likely originate either from photoionized gas within 0.1 pc of the nucleus of M 81, or from a non-thermal distribution of cosmic-ray electrons interacting with the 0.2-0.6 keV thermal plasma which is found in the bulge of M 81.
Dark energy must be taken into account to estimate more reliably the amount of dark matter and how it is distributed in the local universe. For systems several Mpc across like the Local Group, we introduce three self-consistent independent mass estimators. These account for the antigravity effect of dark energy treated as Einsteins cosmological constant Lambda. The first is a modified Kahn-Woltjer model which gives a value of the Local Group mass via the particular motions of the two largest members, the Milky Way and M31. Inclusion of dark energy in this model increases the minimum mass estimate by a factor of three compared to the classical estimate. The increase is less but still significant for different ways of using the timing argument. The second estimator is a modified virial theorem which also demonstrates how dark energy can hide from detection a part of the gravitating mass of the system. The third is a new zero-gravity method which gives an upper limit to the group mass which we calculate with high precision HST observations. In combination, the estimators lead to a robust and rather narrow range for a groups mass, M. For the Local Group, 3.2 < M < 3.7 x 10^{12} M_sun. Our result agrees well with the Millennium Simulation based on the LambdaCDM cosmology.
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