Other
Scientific paper
Dec 1997
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997hst..prop.7852z&link_type=abstract
HST Proposal ID #7852
Other
Hst Proposal Id #7852 Galaxies
Scientific paper
We propose to obtain NICMOS H-band images of NGC 5907 in order to determine the composition of its stellar halo. Previous ground-based observations have discovered that NGC 5907 has a stellar halo with a radial profile that roughly traces the isothermal profile required to reproduce the rotation curve. However, these studies have been unable to determine if the light is primarily composed of giants, which would result from a typical stellar initial mass function, or dwarfs, which would be required to give the high mass-to-light ratio necessary to make the population dynamically significant. Our proposed NICMOS images will cleanly distinguish between these possibilities. Specifically, we will readily detect many individual bright stars if giants contribute significantly to the halo light, whereas we will not resolve the population if it is dominated by dwarfs. The two hypotheses can also be clearly differentiated on the basis of the observed surface brightness fluctuations, providing an independent check on the results. The proposed observations offer a clean test of the stellar composition of the halo of NGC 5907 and therefore of the speculative possibility that the faint r^-2 stellar halo observed in this galaxy is the first demonstrated example of a baryonic dark matter halo.
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