A Complete Spectroscopic Survey of the Milky Way satellite Segue 1: Dark matter content, stellar membership and binary properties from a Bayesian analysis

Details A Complete Spectroscopic Survey of the Milky Way satellite Segue 1: Dark matter content, stellar membership and binary properties from a Bayesian analysis A Complete Spectroscopic Survey of the Milky Way satellite Segue 1: Dark matter content, stellar membership and binary properties from a Bayesian analysis

2010-08-26

arxiv.org/abs/1008.4585v2

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 738, Issue 1, article id. 55 (2011)

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Galaxy Astrophysics

15 pages, 19 figures

Scientific paper

10.1088/0004-637X/738/1/55

We introduce a comprehensive analysis of multi-epoch stellar line-of-sight velocities to determine the intrinsic velocity dispersion of the ultrafaint satellites of the Milky Way. Our method includes a simultaneous Bayesian analysis of both membership probabilities and the contribution of binary orbital motion to the observed velocity dispersion within a 14-parameter likelihood. We apply our method to the Segue 1 dwarf galaxy and conclude that Segue 1 is a dark-matter-dominated galaxy at high probability with an intrinsic velocity dispersion of 3.7^{+1.4}_{-1.1} km/sec. The dark matter halo required to produce this dispersion must have an average density of 2.5^{+4.1}_{-1.9} solar mass/pc^3 within a sphere that encloses half the galaxy's stellar luminosity. This is the highest measured density of dark matter in the Local Group. Our results show that a significant fraction of the stars in Segue 1 may be binaries with the most probable mean period close to 10 years, but also consistent with the 180 year mean period seen in the solar vicinity at about 1 sigma. Despite this binary population, the possibility that Segue 1 is a bound star cluster with the observed velocity dispersion arising from the orbital motion of binary stars is disfavored by the multi-epoch stellar velocity data at greater than 99% C.L. Finally, our treatment yields a projected (two-dimensional) half-light radius for the stellar profile of Segue 1 of 28^{+5}_{-4} pc, in excellent agreement with photometric measurements.

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