A Search for Near-Infrared Emission From the Halo of NGC 5907 at Radii of 10 kpc to 30 kpc

Details A Search for Near-Infrared Emission From the Halo of NGC 5907 at Radii of 10 kpc to 30 kpc A Search for Near-Infrared Emission From the Halo of NGC 5907 at Radii of 10 kpc to 30 kpc

1999-08-31

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9908364v2

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

12 pages, LateX, plus 6 ps figures. Accepted by ApJ. minor changes, added references, corrected typos

Scientific paper

10.1086/308871

We present a search for near-infrared (3.5-5 micron) emission from baryonic dark matter in the form of low-mass stars and/or brown dwarfs in the halo of the nearby edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5907. The observations were made using a 256 by 256 InSb array with a pixel scale of 17" at the focus of a liquid-helium-cooled telescope carried above the Earth's atmosphere by a sounding rocket. In contrast to previous experiments which have detected a halo around NGC 5907 in the V, R, I, J and K bands at galactic radii 6kpc < r < 10kpc, our search finds no evidence for emission from a halo at 10kpc < r < 30kpc. Assuming a halo mass density scaling as r^(-2), which is consistent with the flat rotation curves that are observed out to radii of 32kpc, the lower limit of the mass-to-light ratio at 3.5-5 microns for the halo of NGC 5907 is 250 (2 sigma) in solar units. This is comparable to the lower limit we have found previously for NGC 4565 (Uemizu et al. 1998). Based on recent models, our non-detection implies that hydrogen- burning stars contribute < 15% of the mass of the dark halo of NGC 5907. Our results are consistent with the previous detection of extended emission at r < 10kpc if the latter is caused by a stellar population that has been ejected from the disk because of tidal interactions. We conclude that the dark halo of NGC 5907, which is evident from rotation curves that extend far beyond 10kpc, is not comprised of hydrogen burning stars.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

A Search for Near-Infrared Emission From the Halo of NGC 5907 at Radii of 10 kpc to 30 kpc does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with A Search for Near-Infrared Emission From the Halo of NGC 5907 at Radii of 10 kpc to 30 kpc, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and A Search for Near-Infrared Emission From the Halo of NGC 5907 at Radii of 10 kpc to 30 kpc will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-365157