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Title: A statistical investigation of the mass discrepancy–acceleration relation

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
 [1]
  1. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Kavli Inst. for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and Physics Dept.; SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)

We use the mass discrepancy–acceleration relation (the correlation between the ratio of total-to-visible mass and acceleration in galaxies; MDAR) to test the galaxy–halo connection. Here, we analyse the MDAR using a set of 16 statistics that quantify its four most important features: shape, scatter, the presence of a ‘characteristic acceleration scale’, and the correlation of its residuals with other galaxy properties. We construct an empirical framework for the galaxy–halo connection in LCDM to generate predictions for these statistics, starting with conventional correlations (halo abundance matching; AM) and introducing more where required. Comparing to the SPARC data, we find that: (1) the approximate shape of the MDAR is readily reproduced by AM, and there is no evidence that the acceleration at which dark matter becomes negligible has less spread in the data than in AM mocks; (2) even under conservative assumptions, AM significantly overpredicts the scatter in the relation and its normalization at low acceleration, and furthermore positions dark matter too close to galaxies’ centres on average; (3) the MDAR affords 2σ evidence for an anticorrelation of galaxy size and Hubble type with halo mass or concentration at fixed stellar mass. Lastly, our analysis lays the groundwork for a bottom-up determination of the galaxy–halo connection from relations such as the MDAR, provides concrete statistical tests for specific galaxy formation models, and brings into sharper focus the relative evidence accorded by galaxy kinematics to LCDM and modified gravity alternatives.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1353108
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 464, Issue 4; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 72 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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A mass-dependent density profile for dark matter haloes including the influence of galaxy formation text January 2014
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Strong bimodality in the host halo mass of central galaxies from galaxy-galaxy lensing text January 2015
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The Dark Side of the Halo Occupation Distribution text January 2003
Response of dark matter halos to condensation of baryons: cosmological simulations and improved adiabatic contraction model text January 2004
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Testing the Dark Matter Hypothesis with Low Surface Brightness Galaxies and Other Evidence text January 1998
Where are the missing galactic satellites? text January 1999
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Cited By (30)

A Comment on ‘Cosmology and Convention’ by David Merritt journal May 2019
Fitting the radial acceleration relation to individual SPARC galaxies journal July 2018
Dark matter–baryon scaling relations from Einasto halo fits to SPARC galaxy rotation curves journal March 2019
The origin of the mass discrepancy–acceleration relation in ΛCDM journal July 2017
A plane of high-velocity galaxies across the Local Group journal October 2017
Testing gravity with wide binary stars like α Centauri journal July 2018
Origin of the Local Group satellite planes journal April 2018
The radial acceleration relation and dark baryons in MOND journal May 2019
Directly testing gravity with Proxima Centauri journal May 2019
A new line on the wide binary test of gravity journal June 2019
Constraints on chameleon f(R)-gravity from galaxy rotation curves of the SPARC sample journal August 2019
Clustering constraints on the relative sizes of central and satellite galaxies journal August 2019
Galaxy sizes and the galaxy–halo connection – I. The remarkable tightness of the size distributions journal December 2019
Scale-invariant dynamics of galaxies, MOND, dark matter, and the dwarf spheroidals journal December 2019
NIHAO – XVIII. Origin of the MOND phenomenology of galactic rotation curves in a ΛCDM universe journal February 2019
The tight empirical relation between dark matter halo mass and flat rotation velocity for late-type galaxies journal October 2018
Halo acceleration relation journal July 2019
One Law to Rule Them All: The Radial Acceleration Relation of Galaxies journal February 2017
A Test of MONDian Gravity in ∼300 Pressure-supported Elliptical Galaxies from the MaNGA Survey journal August 2018
Radial Acceleration Relation between Baryons and Dark or Phantom Matter in the Supercritical Acceleration Regime of Nearly Spherical Galaxies journal May 2019
The Radial Acceleration Relation Is a Natural Consequence of the Baryonic Tully–Fisher Relation journal August 2019
The Imprint of Spiral Arms on the Galactic Rotation Curve journal November 2019
One Law To Rule Them All: The Radial Acceleration Relation of Galaxies text January 2016
The radial acceleration relation is a natural consequence of the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation text January 2018
A Test of MONDian Gravity in $\sim$300 pressure supported elliptical galaxies from the MaNGA survey text January 2018
Dark matter-baryon scaling relations from Einasto halo fits to SPARC galaxy rotation curves text January 2018
A new line on the wide binary test of gravity text January 2019
Directly testing gravity with Proxima Centauri text January 2019
The radial acceleration relation and dark baryons in MOND text January 2019
Halo Acceleration Relation text January 2019

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