THE SPACE MOTION OF LEO I: THE MASS OF THE MILKY WAY'S DARK MATTER HALO
- Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, 4129 Reines Hall, Irvine, CA 92697 (United States)
- Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 (United States)
We combine our Hubble Space Telescope measurement of the proper motion of the Leo I dwarf spheroidal galaxy (presented in a companion paper) with the highest resolution numerical simulations of Galaxy-size dark matter halos in existence to constrain the mass of the Milky Way's dark matter halo (M{sub vir,MW}). Despite Leo I's large Galactocentric space velocity (200 km s{sup -1}) and distance (261 kpc), we show that it is extremely unlikely to be unbound if Galactic satellites are associated with dark matter substructure, as 99.9% of subhalos in the simulations are bound to their host. The observed position and velocity of Leo I strongly disfavor a low-mass Milky Way: if we assume that Leo I is the least bound of the Milky Way's classical satellites, then we find that M{sub vir,MW} > 10{sup 12} M{sub Sun} at 95% confidence for a variety of Bayesian priors on M{sub vir,MW}. In lower mass halos, it is vanishingly rare to find subhalos at 261 kpc moving as fast as Leo I. Should an additional classical satellite be found to be less bound than Leo I, this lower limit on M{sub vir,MW} would increase by 30%. Imposing a mass-weighted {Lambda}CDM prior, we find a median Milky Way virial mass of M{sub vir,MW} = 1.6 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 12} M{sub Sun }, with a 90% confidence interval of [1.0-2.4] Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 12} M{sub Sun }. We also confirm a strong correlation between subhalo infall time and orbital energy in the simulations and show that proper motions can aid significantly in interpreting the infall times and orbital histories of satellites.
- OSTI ID:
- 22126727
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 768, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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