Bibcode
López-Corredoira, M.; Beckman, J. E.; Casuso, E.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.351, p.920-924 (1999)
Advertised on:
11
1999
Journal
Citations
17
Refereed citations
12
Description
The High-Velocity Clouds (HVCs) observed in the Galactic neighbourhood,
have been proposed to be remnants of the formation of the galaxies in
the Local Group, having distances, and thus masses, predominantly of
dark matter, considerably larger than hitherto hypothesized. This
hypothesis is plausibly supported by observational evidence that their
kinematical centre is the Local Group barycentre. Evolutionary models to
account for the evolution of the light elements in the Galaxy demand
infall of metal poor gas to the plane, which could well be supplied by
these HVCs. Modelling the time dependence of this infall, taking into
account that an accreting galaxy shows an increasing cross-section to
the infalling clouds, and produces increasing mean infall velocities, we
deduce that the HVCs must currently represent at least around one half
of the total mass of the Local Group, given that the accretion rate, as
inferred from chemical evolution, has not decreased significantly during
the disc lifetime. This fraction is consistent with dynamical estimates
of the relative masses of the Local Group as a whole and its constituent
galaxies. The HVCs may thus form a significant constituent of baryonic,
and of non-baryonic, dark matter.