Physical properties underlying observed kinematics of satellite galaxies

TL;DR

This study analyzes satellite galaxy kinematics from SDSS data to infer dark matter halo properties, revealing differences based on galaxy color and providing new halo-to-stellar mass relations consistent with LCDM predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking satellite kinematics to dark matter halo characteristics, with novel constraints on halo concentration, mass, and orbital anisotropy across galaxy types.

Findings

Red galaxies have more concentrated halos than blue galaxies.

The halo concentration-mass relation aligns with LCDM predictions.

Satellite density profiles are shallower than dark matter profiles.

Abstract

We study the kinematics of satellites around isolated galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopic catalog. Using a model of the phase-space density previously measured for the halos of LCDM dark matter cosmological simulations, we determine the properties of the halo mass distribution and the orbital anisotropy of the satellites as a function of the colour-based morphological type and the stellar mass of the central host galaxy. We place constraints on the halo mass and the concentration parameter of dark matter and the satellite number density profiles. We obtain a concentration-mass relation for galactic dark matter haloes that is consistent with predictions of a standard LCDM cosmological model. At given halo or stellar mass, red galaxies have more concentrated halos than their blue counterparts. The fraction of dark matter within a few effective radii is minimal for 11.25<log M_star<11.5. The number density profile of the satellites appears to be shallower than of dark matter, with the scale radius typically 60 per cent larger than of dark matter. The orbital anisotropy around red hosts exhibits a mild excess of radial motions, in agreement with the typical anisotropy profiles found in cosmological simulations, whereas blue galaxies are found to be consistent with an isotropic velocity distribution. Our new constraints on the halo masses of galaxies are used to provide analytic approximations of the halo-to-stellar mass relation for red and blue galaxies.