Mass Models of the Milky Way and Estimation of Its Mass from the Gaia DR3 Data Set

Sylos Labini, Francesco; Chrobáková, Žofia; Capuzzo-Dolcetta, Roberto; López-Corredoira, Martín
Bibliographical reference

The Astrophysical Journal

Advertised on:
3
2023
Number of authors
4
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
9
Refereed citations
5
Description
We use data from the Gaia DR3 data set to estimate the mass of the Milky Way (MW) by analyzing the rotation curve in the range of distances 5 to 28 kpc. We consider three mass models: The first model adds a spherical dark matter (DM) halo, following the Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile, to the known stellar components. The second model assumes that DM is confined to the Galactic disk, following the idea that the observed density of gas in the Galaxy is related to the presence of a more massive DM disk (DMD), similar to the observed correlation between DM and gas in other galaxies. The third model only uses the known stellar-mass components and is based on the Modified Newton Dynamics (MOND) theory. Our results indicate that the DMD model is comparable in accuracy to the NFW and MOND models and fits the data better at large radii where the rotation curve declines but has the largest errors. For the NFW model, we obtain a virial mass M vir = (6.5 ± 0.3) × 1011 M ⊙ with concentration parameter c = 14.5, which is lower than what is typically reported. In the DMD case, we find that the MW mass is M d = (1.6 ± 0.5) × 1011 M ⊙ with a disk's characteristic radius of R d = 17 kpc.
Related projects
NGC 2808 Globular Cluster
Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies

The general aim of the project is to research the structure, evolutionary history and formation of galaxies through the study of their resolved stellar populations, both from photometry and spectroscopy. The group research concentrates in the most nearby objects, namely the Local Group galaxies including the Milky Way and M33 under the hypothesis

Martín
López Corredoira