Comparison of Modeling SPARC spiral galaxies' rotation curves: halo models vs MOND

TL;DR

This study compares dark matter halo models and MOND in fitting rotation curves of 45 HSB spiral galaxies, finding that cored halo profiles fit better than cuspy ones and that MOND's acceleration parameter varies.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of halo models and MOND using a specific galaxy sample, highlighting the preference for cored profiles and variable MOND parameters.

Findings

Burkert halo model fits data best among the three models.

A correlation exists between core density and radius in the Burkert model.

MOND's acceleration parameter shows no correlation with galaxy brightness and is lower than the standard value.

Abstract

We investigate a sub-sample of the rotation curves consisting of 45 HSB non-bulgy spiral galaxies selected from SPARC (Spitzer Photometry and Accurate Rotation Curves) database by using two dark halo models (NFW and Burkert) and MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) theory. Among these three models, the core-dominated Burkert halo model provides a better description of the observed data ($\chi_{\nu}^2$ = 0.33) than Navarro, Frenk and White (NFW, $\chi_{\nu}^2$= 0.45) and MOND model ($\chi_{\nu}^2$ = 0.58). So our results show that, for dark halo models, the selected 45 HSB non-bulgy spiral galaxies prefer a cored density profile to the cuspy one (NFW); We also positively find that there is a correlation between $\rho_0$ and $r_0$ in Burkert model. For MOND fits, when we take $a_0$ as a free parameter, there is no obvious correlation between $a_0$ and disk central surface brightness at 3.6 $\mu m$ of these HSB spiral galaxies, which is in line with the basic assumption of MOND that $a_0$ should be a universal constant. Interestingly, our fittings gives $a_0$ an average value of $(0.74 \pm 0.45) \times 10^{- 8}\rm {cm\ s^{- 2}}$ if we exclude the three highest values in the sample, which is smaller than the standard value ($1.21 \times 10^{-8}\rm {cm\ s^{- 2}}$).