A Dearth of Dark Matter in Ordinary Elliptical Galaxies
Abstract
The kinematics of the outer parts of three intermediate-luminosity elliptical galaxies were studied with the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph. The galaxies' velocity-dispersion profiles were found to decline with the radius, and dynamical modeling of the data indicates the presence of little if any dark matter in these galaxies' halos. This unexpected result conflicts with findings in other galaxy types and poses a challenge to current galaxy formation theories.
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- September 2003
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.1087441
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/0308518
- Bibcode:
- 2003Sci...301.1696R
- Keywords:
-
- ASTRONOMY;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Science, 19 Sep 03, in press, 15 pp., 6 figs (4 color), supporting online material integrated as appendix, uses scicite.sty. See high-res version at http://astro.nottingham.ac.uk/~romanow/res.html and Science Express online at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1087441v1