No Arabic abstract
We study the mass-to-light ratio of galaxy systems from poor groups to rich clusters, and present for the first time a large database for useful comparisons with theoretical predictions. We extend a previous work, where B_j band luminosities and optical virial masses were analyzed for a sample of 89 clusters. Here we also consider a sample of 52 more clusters, 36 poor clusters, 7 rich groups, and two catalogs, of about 500 groups each, recently identified in the Nearby Optical Galaxy sample by using two different algorithms. We obtain the blue luminosity and virial mass for all systems considered. We devote a large effort to establishing the homogeneity of the resulting values, as well as to considering comparable physical regions, i.e. those included within the virial radius. By analyzing a fiducial, combined sample of 294 systems we find that the mass increases faster than the luminosity: the linear fit gives Mpropto L_B^{1.34 pm 0.03}, with a tendency for a steeper increase in the low--mass range. In agreement with the previous work, our present results are superior owing to the much higher statistical significance and the wider dynamical range covered (about 10^{12}-10^{15} M_solar). We present a comparison between our results and the theoretical predictions on the relation between M/L_B and halo mass, obtained by combining cosmological numerical simulations and semianalytic modeling of galaxy formation.
We determine the mass profile of an ensemble cluster built from 3056 galaxies in 59 nearby clusters observed in the ESO Nearby Abell Cluster Survey. The mass profile is derived from the distribution and kinematics of the Early-type (elliptical and S0) galaxies only, which are most likely to meet the conditions for the application of the Jeans equation. We assume that the Early-type galaxies have isotropic orbits, as supported by the shape of their velocity distribution. The brightest ellipticals (with M_R < -22+5 log h), and the Early-type galaxies in subclusters are excluded from the sample. Application of the Jeans equation yields a non-parametric estimate of the cumulative mass profile M(<r), which has a logarithmic slope of -2.4 +/- 0.4 in the density profile at the virial radius. We compare our result with several analytical models from the literature (NFW, Moore et al. 1999, softened isothermal sphere, and Burkert 1995) and find that all are acceptable. However, our data do not provide compelling evidence for the existence of a core; as a matter of fact, the best-fitting core models have core-radii well below 100/h kpc. The upper limit we put on the size of the core-radius provides a constraint for the scattering cross-section of dark matter particles. The total-mass density appears to be traced remarkably well by the luminosity density of the Early-type galaxies. On the contrary, the luminosity density of the brightest ellipticals increases faster towards the center than the mass density, while the luminosity density profiles of the early and late spirals are somewhat flatter than the mass density profile. (Abridged)
Since the near future should see a rapidly expanding set of probes of the halo masses of individual early-type galaxies, we introduce a convenient parameter for characterising the halo masses from both observational and theoretical results: dML, the logarithmic radial gradient of the mass-to-light ratio. Using halo density profiles from LCDM simulations, we derive predictions for this gradient for various galaxy luminosities and star formation efficiencies $epsilon_{SF}$. As a pilot study, we assemble the available dML data from kinematics in early-type galaxies - representing the first unbiassed study of halo masses in a wide range of early-type galaxy luminosities - and find a correlation between luminosity and dML, such that the brightest galaxies appear the most dark-matter dominated. We find that the gradients in most of the brightest galaxies may fit in well with the LCDM predictions, but that there is also a population of fainter galaxies whose gradients are so low as to imply an unreasonably high star formation efficiency $epsilon_{SF} > 1$. This difficulty is eased if dark haloes are not assumed to have the standard LCDM profiles, but lower central concentrations.
We analyze a sample of 105 clusters having virial mass homogeneously estimated and for which galaxy magnitudes are available with a well defined high degree of completeness. In particular, we consider a subsample of 89 clusters with B_j band galaxy magnitudes taken from the COSMOS/UKST Southern Sky Object Catalogue. We compute cluster luminosities L_{B_j} within several clustercentric distances and within the virialization radius R_{vir}. In particular, we use the luminosity function and background counts estimated by Lumsden et al. (1997) on the Edinburgh/Durham Southern Galaxy Catalogue. We analyze the effect of several uncertainties connected to photometric data, fore/background removal, and extrapolation below the completeness limit of the photometry, in order to assess the robustness of our cluster luminosity estimates. We draw our results on the relations between luminosity and dynamical quantities from the COSMOS sample by considering mass and luminosities determined within the virialization radius. We find a very good correlation between cluster luminosity, L_{B_j}, and galaxy velocity dispersion, sigma_v, with L_{B_j} proportional to sigma_v^{2.1--2.3}. Our estimate of typical value for the mass-to-light ratio is M/L_{B_j} about 250 (in solar units). We do not find any correlation of M/L_{B_j} with cluster morphologies, i.e. Rood--Sastry and Bautz--Morgan types, and only a weak significant correlation with cluster richness. We find that mass has a slight, but significant, tendency to increase faster than the luminosity does, M proportional to L_{B_j}^{1.2--1.3}. We verify the robustness of this relation against a number of possible systematics.
We analyze the three catalogs of nearby loose groups identified by Garcia (1993). She used a percolation and a hierarchical method, and proposed a third group catalog defined as a combination of the two. Each catalog contains almost 500 groups. In agreement with previous works on earlier catalogs, we find that groups can be described as collapsing systems. Their sampled size is much larger than their expected virialized region. We compute the virial masses and correct them by taking into account the young dynamical status. We estimate group masses, M, for two cosmological models, a flat one with Omega_0=1 and an open one with Omega_0=0.2. For each of the three catalogs we calculate the mass function, MF. The number density of groups with M>9x10^{12}msun, which is the adopted limit of sample completeness, ranges within 1.3-1.9x10^{-3}h^3/Mpc^3 for Omega_0=1, and it is about a factor of 15% lower for Omega_0=0.2. The MFs of the hierarchical and combined catalogs have essentially the same shape, while the MF of the percolation catalog shows a flattening towards large masses. However, the difference decreases if we do not consider the most massive groups, for which reliable results come from galaxy cluster studies. After having estimated the mass contained within the central, presumably virialized, regions of groups by adopting a reduction in mass of 30-40%, we do a comparison with the results coming from the virial analysis of nearby rich clusters (Girardi et al. 1998). All three group MFs turn out to be a smooth extrapolation of the cluster MF at M<4x10^{14}msun, which is the completeness limit of the cluster sample. The resulting optical virial MF of galaxy systems, which extends over two orders of magnitude, is fitted to a Schechter expression with a slope of about -1.5 and a characteristic mass of about 3x10^{14}msun.
The dark matter content of early,- type galaxies (ETGs) is a hotly debated topic with contrasting results arguing in favour or against the presence of significant dark mass within the effective radius and the change with luminosity and mass. In order to address this question, we investigate here the global mass - to - light ratio $Upsilon(r) = M(r)/L(r)$ of a sample of 21 lenses observed within the Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) survey. We follow the usual approach of modeling the galaxy as a two component systems, but we use a phenomenological ansatz for $Upsilon(r)$, proposed by some of us in Tortora et al. (2007), able to smoothly interpolate between constant $M/L$ models and a wide class of dark matter haloes. The resulting galaxy model is then fitted to the data on the Einstein radius and velocity dispersion. Our phenomenological model turns out to be in well agreement with the data suggesting the presence of massive dark matter haloes in order to explain the lensing and dynamics properties of the SLACS lenses. According to the values of the dark matter mass fraction, we argue that the halo may play a significant role in the inner regions probed by the data, but such a conclusion strongly depends on the adopted initial mass function of the stellar population. Finally, we find that the dark matter mass fraction within $R_{eff}$ scales with both the total luminosity and stellar mass in such a way that more luminous (and hence more massive) galaxies have a larger dark matter content.