Kinematics of Milky Way Satellites: Mass Estimates, Rotation Limits, and Proper Motions

TL;DR

This paper develops a likelihood formalism to analyze the internal kinematics of Milky Way satellite galaxies, enabling more accurate mass estimates and rotation limits, which are crucial for understanding dark matter distribution.

Contribution

It introduces a new likelihood approach to extract rotation, proper motion, and mass profiles from kinematic data, and applies it to analyze dark matter halos and velocity anisotropy.

Findings

No significant rotation detected in Sculptor galaxy.

Likelihood more sensitive to dark matter density slope than velocity anisotropy.

Variable radial velocity anisotropy models are preferred.

Abstract

In the past several years high resolution kinematic data sets from Milky Way satellite galaxies have confirmed earlier indications that these systems are dark matter dominated objects. Further understanding of what these galaxies reveal about cosmology and the small scale structure of dark matter relies in large part on a more detailed interpretation of their internal kinematics. This article discusses a likelihood formalism that extracts important quantities from the kinematic data, including the amplitude of rotation, proper motion, and the mass distribution. In the simplest model the projected error on the rotational amplitude is shown to be $\sim 0.5 $ km s$^{-1}$ with $\sim 10^3$ stars from either classical or ultra-faint satellites. The galaxy Sculptor is analyzed for the presence of a rotational signal; no significant detection of rotation is found, and given this result limits are derived on the Sculptor proper motion. A criteria for model selection is discussed that determines the parameters required to describe the dark matter halo density profiles and the stellar velocity anisotropy. Applied to four data sets with a wide range of velocities, the likelihood is found to be more sensitive to variations in the slope of the dark matter density profile than variations in the velocity anisotropy. Models with variable radial velocity anisotropy are shown to be preferred relative to those in which this quantity is constant at all radii in the galaxy.