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Single galactic proof of Dark matter?

Physics Asked on December 5, 2020

I’ve heard tell that many galaxies have visible mass profiles which do not match up to a predicted Gravitationally Newtonian velocity distribution. Can anyone here find me an accessible paper of an extremely articulate measurement of the mass of a specific galaxy with a numerically predicted velocity profile compared to the experimentally found one that I could look at? It would be greatly appreciated as I want to go beyond the popular scientific discussions of the problem and look at the evidence itself.

2 Answers

A useful review paper is Sofue & Rubin, 2001, Rotation Curves of Spiral Galaxies, Ann.Rev.Astron.Astrophys. 39, 137-174. Rubin collected most of the evidence on rotation curves. The data itself gives a very different picture from the popular view that rotation curves are flat. Flatness is only a general characteristic. About half of all curves show abnormalities which often cannot be explained either by modification of gravity or by cold dark matter. Some curves actually fall away faster than the Newtonian prediction. The data for this paper is given by Sofue Y., Tutu Y., Honma M., Tomita A., Takamiya T. Koda J. Takeda Y., 1999, Central Rotation Curves of Spiral Galaxies, ApJ, 523,136-146. This shows these curves

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All things considered, I think one has to look to a different kind of explanation, such as I have given here.

Answered by Charles Francis on December 5, 2020

Generally, in astrophysics, most papers are published on arxiv.org free of charge. It's a great resource and you'll easily find many measurements of rotation curves of galaxies.

One example that is a bit older but to your point is this paper by Corbelli and Salucci from 1999. Here is their Figure 6 that shows what you are looking for:

Rotation curve of M33 from Corbelli and Salucci

This is the rotation curve of the Triangulum galaxy M33 (data points), a member of our Local Group of galaxies. Shown also are the contributions from its three main components: the dark matter halo (dash-dotted) as well as the stellar disk (short dashed) and the interstellar gas (long dashed). Together, these three add to the solid line and explain the rotation curve of that galaxy.

I would like to clarify something though, the OP writes that "many galaxies have visible mass profiles which do not match up to a predicted Gravitationally Newtonian velocity distribution." Well, they do of course, once you take dark matter into account. Only without knowing about dark matter are you left to wonder how objects in galaxies can sustain their large speeds.

Answered by rfl on December 5, 2020

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