THE DISTRIBUTION OF DARK MATTER IN THE HALO OF THE EARLY-TYPE GALAXY NGC 4636

Dalia Chakrabarty, Somak Raychaudhury
2008 Astronomical Journal  
We present the density structure of dark matter in the outer parts (to about 7 effective radii) of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4636, from the radial velocities of 174 globular clusters, using the non-parametric, Bayesian algorithm CHASSIS. We find the galaxy to be rich in dark matter, with R-band mass-to-light (M/L) ratios rising to about 30, at nearly 4R_e; the K-band M/L at about 3R_e is found to be nearly 10. The result does not depend on applying the method to the red and blue globular
more » ... s separately. This estimate of M/L is higher than the previous analysis from the same kinematic data. We also find that the dark matter distribution is highly concentrated towards the inner halo.
doi:10.1088/0004-6256/135/6/2350 fatcat:itqnypt3krce5d3hehhtxu34zu