Tidal Tales Two: The Effect of Dark Matter Halos on Tidal Tail Morphology and Kinematics

Details Tidal Tales Two: The Effect of Dark Matter Halos on Tidal Tail Morphology and Kinematics Tidal Tales Two: The Effect of Dark Matter Halos on Tidal Tail Morphology and Kinematics

Feb 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998apj...494..183m&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal v.494, p.183

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

44

Cosmology: Dark Matter, Galaxies: Individual Ngc Number: Ngc 7252, Galaxies: Interactions, Galaxies: Kinematics And Dynamics, Galaxies: Structure

Scientific paper

We examine the effect of different dark matter halo potentials on the morphology and kinematics of tidal tails in a merger model of NGC 7252. We find that models of merging galaxies with low halo masses of Mh ~ 4-8 Mdisk+bulge (Mdb) can fit the observed morphology and kinematics of the NGC 7252 tails, while galaxies with high-mass halos (Mh ~ 16-32 Mdb) fail in this respect. In high-mass models, the deep potential only allows weakly bound disk material (stars or gas) at R >~ 5 disk scale lengths to be ejected in tidal tails that tend to fall back onto the parent galaxies before the final merger. Galaxies with massive, low-density halos are somewhat more successful at ejecting tidal debris during mergers, but they still have difficulties recreating the thin, gas-rich tails observed in NGC 7252. Our models suggest upper limits for the dark halo masses in the NGC 7252 progenitor galaxies of roughly Mh <~ 10 Mdb. We note, however, that our calculations have focused on the rather idealized case of the isolated merging of galaxies with distinct dark matter halos; calculations that employ more realistic ("cosmological") initial conditions are needed to fully explore the use of tidal tails in constraining dark matter in galaxies.

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