Studying Dynamical Models of the Core Galaxy NGC 1399 with Merging Remnants

TL;DR

This paper models the core galaxy NGC 1399 considering merging remnants, finding a cuspy dark matter profile and suggesting that remnant rings from past mergers explain the galaxy's core structure and surface brightness profile.

Contribution

It introduces dynamical models incorporating remnant rings to explain NGC 1399's core, highlighting the galaxy's merging history and dark matter profile.

Findings

Inner dark matter profile is cuspy

Remnant rings indicate past mergers

Remnant rings explain core surface brightness

Abstract

An investigation on the possible dynamical models of the core galaxy NGC 1399 is performed. Because early-type galaxies are likely to be formed through merging events, remnant rings are considered in the modeling process. A numerical survey over three parameters is employed to obtain the best-fit models that are completely consistent with observations. It is found that the inner slope of dark matter profile is a cuspy one for this core galaxy. The existence of remnant rings in best-fit models indicates a merging history. The remnant ring explains the flatten surface brightness, and thus could be the physical counterpart of the core structure of NGC 1399.