Infall of nearby galaxies into the Virgo cluster as traced with Hubble space telescope

Journal Article · Mon Feb 10 04:00:00 EST 2014 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/782/1/4· OSTI ID:22348075

Karachentsev, Igor D. ^[1]; Tully, R. Brent; Wu, Po-Feng ^[2]; Shaya, Edward J. ^[3]

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1. Special Astrophysical Observatory RAS, Nizhnij Arkhyz, Karachai-Cherkessian Republic 369167 (Russian Federation)
2. Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822 (United States)
3. Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (United States)

We measured the tip of the red giant branch distances to nine galaxies in the direction to the Virgo cluster using the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. These distances put seven galaxies (GR 34, UGC 7512, NGC 4517, IC 3583, NGC 4600, VCC 2037, and KDG 215) in front of Virgo and two galaxies (IC 3023 and KDG 177) likely inside the cluster. Distances and radial velocities of the galaxies situated between us and the Virgo core clearly exhibit the infall phenomenon toward the cluster. In the case of spherically symmetric radial infall, we estimate the radius of the 'zero-velocity surface' to be (7.2 ± 0.7) Mpc, which yields a total mass of the Virgo cluster of (8.0 ± 2.3) × 10{sup 14} M {sub ☉}, in good agreement with its virial mass estimates. We conclude that the Virgo outskirts do not contain significant amounts of dark matter beyond their virial radius.

• OSTI ID: 22348075
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 782; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
DISTANCE
GALAXIES
GALAXY CLUSTERS
MASS
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
RADIAL VELOCITY
RED SHIFT
SPHERICAL CONFIGURATION
STAR CLUSTERS
SURFACES
SYMMETRY
TELESCOPES