A Bayesian Exploration of the Mass of Ursa Major III: Kinematics, Rotation and their influence on the Mass to Light Ratio

TL;DR

This study uses Bayesian methods to analyze the kinematics of UMa III/U1, finding little evidence for rotation and providing mass estimates crucial for classifying it as a dwarf galaxy or star cluster.

Contribution

It introduces a Bayesian approach to assess rotation in UMa III/U1 and estimates its mass-to-light ratio, aiding in its classification.

Findings

Non-rotating model is preferred for UMa III/U1

Lower-bound mass-to-light ratio is approximately 734

UMa III/U1 likely not supported by rotational pressure

Abstract

We investigate the kinematics of the potential ultra-faint dwarf galaxy (UFD) UMa III/U1 using Bayesian inference to search for the signal of any potential intrinsic rotation. The magnitude of rotation is relevant to estimating the total mass of UMa III/U1, which is critical in determining whether or not UMa III/U1 is in fact a UFD, or possibly a star cluster home to a significant binary fraction. A non-rotating model and a rotational model are fitted for the current total population of member stars of UMa III/U1, finding that a non-rotating model was preferred by a factor of $\sim 5-12 \times$. This was repeated on a reduced population of UMa III/U1, where potential contaminant stars were removed. A similar preference for non-rotation was found for these reduced populations. We calculate a lower-bound rotational mass estimate for UMa III/U1 and a corresponding lower bound mass-to-light ratio of $ 734.4^{+339.0}_{-176.2} \mathrm{M_\odot} / \mathrm{L_\odot} $ for the total population. We conclude that UMa III/U1 still remains an ambiguous object with viable arguments for both the UFD and self-gravitating star cluster scenarios, however under both, UMa III/U1 is unlikely to be supported by rotational pressure.