Empirical velocity profiles for galactic rotation curves

TL;DR

This paper introduces an empirical model for galaxy rotation curves that fits a large dataset without prior knowledge of luminous matter or fixed dark matter models, revealing a finite galaxy size and enabling total mass estimation.

Contribution

It proposes a unified velocity profile parametrization that accurately fits diverse galaxy rotation curves without pre-assumed luminous or dark matter components.

Findings

Fits 850 galaxy rotation curves accurately

Reveals a finite galaxy size scale

Enables estimation of total galaxy mass

Abstract

A unified parametrization of the circular velocity, which accurately fits 850 galaxy rotation curves without needing in advance the knowledge of the luminous matter components, nor a fixed dark matter halo model, is proposed. A notable feature is that the associated gravitational potential increases with the distance from the galaxy center, giving rise to a length scale indicating a finite size of a galaxy, and after, the Keplerian fall-off of the parametrized circular velocity is recovered according to Newtonian gravity, making possible the estimation of the total mass enclosed by the galaxy.