No Arabic abstract
In the previous papers in this series, we have measured the stellar and hi content in a sample of edge-on galaxies. In the present paper, we perform a simultaneous rotation curve and vertical force field gradient decomposition for five of these edge-on galaxies. The rotation curve decomposition provides a measure of the radial dark matter potential, while the vertical force field gradient provide a measure of the vertical dark matter potential. We fit dark matter halo models to these potentials. Using our hi self-absorption results, we find that a typical dark matter halo has a less dense core ($0.094pm0.230$,M$_odot$/pc$^3$) compared to an optically thin hi model ($0.150pm0.124$,M$_odot$/pc$^3$). The HI self-absorption dark matter halo has a longer scale length $R_c$ of $1.42pm 3.48$,kpc, versus $1.10pm 1.81$,kpc for the optically thin HI model. The median halo shape is spherical, at $q=1.0pm0.6$ (self-absorbing hi), while it is prolate at $q=1.5pm0.6$ for the optically thin. Our best results were obtained for ESO,274-G001 and UGC,7321, for which we were able to measure the velocity dispersion in Paper III. These two galaxies have drastically different halo shapes, with one oblate and one strongly prolate. Overall, we find that the many assumptions required make this type of analysis susceptible to errors.
We present a new strategy for fitting the structure and kinematics of the HI in edge-on galaxies using a fit to the terminal-velocity channel maps of a HI data cube. The strategy can deal with self-absorbing HI gas and the presence of warps. The method is first tested on a series of models. We demonstrate that fitting optically thin models to real galaxies will lead to an overestimation of the thickness and velocity dispersion, and to a serious underestimation of the HI face-on column densities. We subsequently fit both self-absorption and optically thin models to the HI data of six edge-on galaxies. In three of these we have also measured the velocity dispersion. On average 27 pm 6 % of the total HI mass of edge-on galaxies is hidden by self-absorption. This implies that the HI mass, thickness and velocity dispersion of galaxies is typically underestimated in the literature.
We present a new HI modelling tool called textsc{Galactus}. The program has been designed to perform automated fits of disc-galaxy models to observations. It includes a treatment for the self-absorption of the gas. The software has been released into the public domain. We describe the design philosophy and inner workings of the program. After this, we model the face-on galaxy NGC2403, using both self-absorption and optically thin models, showing that self-absorption occurs even in face-on galaxies. It is shown that the maximum surface brightness plateaus seen in Paper I of this series are indeed signs of self-absorption. The apparent HI mass of an edge-on galaxy can be drastically lower compared to that same galaxy seen face-on. The Tully-Fisher relation is found to be relatively free from self-absorption issues.
We quantify the impact of galaxy formation on dark matter halo shapes using cosmological simulations at redshift $z=0$. The haloes are drawn from the IllustrisTNG project, a suite of magneto-hydrodynamic simulations of galaxies. We focus on haloes of mass $10^{10-14} M_odot$ from the 50-Mpc (TNG50) and 100-Mpc (TNG100) boxes, and compare them to dark matter-only (DMO) analogues and other simulations e.g. NIHAO and Eagle. We further quantify the prediction uncertainty by varying the baryonic feedback models in a series of smaller 25 Mpc $h^{-1}$ boxes. We find that: (i) galaxy formation results in rounder haloes compared to the DMO simulations, in qualitative agreement with past hydrodynamic models. Haloes of mass $approx 2times 10^{12} M_odot$ are most spherical, with an average minor-to-major axis ratio of $left< s right> approx 0.75$ in the inner halo, an increase of 40 per cent compared to their DMO counterparts. No significant change in halo shape is found for low-mass $10^{10} M_odot$ haloes; (ii) stronger feedback, e.g. increasing galactic wind speed, reduces the impact of baryons; (iii) the inner halo shape correlates with the stellar mass fraction, which can explain the dependence of halo shapes on different feedback models; (iv) the fiducial and weaker feedback models are most consistent with observational estimates of the Milky Way halo shape. Yet, at fixed halo mass, very diverse and possibly unrealistic feedback models all predict inner halo shapes that are closer to one another than to the DMO results. This implies that a larger observational sample would be required to statistically distinguish between different baryonic prescriptions due to large halo-to-halo variation in halo shapes.
The Local Group is a unique environment in which to study the astrophysics of galaxy formation. The proximity of the Milky Way and M31 causes a large fraction of the low-mass halo population to interact with more massive dark matter haloes, which increases their concentrations and strips them of gas and other material. Some low-mass haloes pass through the haloes of the Milky Way or M31 and are either ejected into the field or exchanged between the two primary hosts. We use high resolution gas-dynamical simulations to describe a new class of field halo that passed through the haloes of both the Milky Way and M31 at early times and is almost twice as concentrated as isolated field haloes. These Hermeian haloes are distributed anisotropically at greater distances from the Local Group barycentre than the primary haloes and appear to cluster close to the Milky Way and M31 in projection. We show that some Hermeian haloes can host galaxies that are promising targets for indirect dark matter searches and are competitive with signals from other dwarf galaxies. Hermeian galaxies in the Local Group should be detectable by forthcoming wide-field imaging surveys.
New photometric and long-slit spectroscopic observations are presented for NGC 7113, PGC 1852, and PGC 67207 which are three bright galaxies residing in low-density environments. The surface-brightness distribution is analysed from the K_S-band images taken with adaptive optics at the Gemini North Telescope and the ugriz-band images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey while the line-of-sight stellar velocity distribution and line-strength Lick indices inside the effective radius are measured along several position angles. The age, metallicity, and alpha-element abundance of the galaxies are estimated from single stellar-population models. In spite of the available morphological classification, images show that PGC 1852 is a barred spiral which we do not further consider for mass modelling. The structural parameters of the two early-type galaxies NGC 7113 and PGC 67207 are obtained from a two-dimensional photometric decomposition and the mass-to-light ratio of all the (luminous and dark) mass that follows the light is derived from orbit-based axisymmetric dynamical modelling together with the mass density of the dark matter halo. The dynamically derived mass that follows the light is about a factor of 2 larger than the stellar mass derived using stellar-population models with Kroupa initial mass function. Both galaxies have a lower content of halo dark matter with respect to early-type galaxies in high-density environments and in agreement with the predictions of semi-analytical models of galaxy formation.