English

Dark Matter Contraction and the Stellar Content of Massive Early-type Galaxies: Disfavoring "Light" Initial Mass Functions

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2015-05-19 v1

Abstract

We use stellar dynamics, strong lensing, stellar population synthesis models, and weak lensing shear measurements to constrain the dark matter (DM) profile and stellar mass in a sample of 53 massive early-type galaxies. We explore three DM halo models (unperturbed Navarro Frenk & White [NFW] halos and the adiabatic contraction models of Blumenthal and Gnedin) and impose a model for the relationship between the stellar and virial mass (i.e., a relationship for the star-formation efficiency as a function of halo mass). We show that, given our model assumptions, the data clearly prefer a Salpeter-like initial mass function (IMF) over a lighter IMF (e.g., Chabrier or Kroupa), irrespective of the choice of DM halo. In addition, we find that the data prefer at most a moderate amount of adiabatic contraction (Blumenthal adiabatic contraction is strongly disfavored) and are only consistent with no adiabatic contraction (i.e., a NFW halo) if a mass-dependent IMF is assumed, in the sense of a more massive normalization of the IMF for more massive halos.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1007.2409,
  title  = {Dark Matter Contraction and the Stellar Content of Massive Early-type Galaxies: Disfavoring "Light" Initial Mass Functions},
  author = {M. W. Auger and T. Treu and R. Gavazzi and A. S. Bolton and L. V. E. Koopmans and P. J. Marshall},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1007.2409},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

6 pages, 3 figures; submitted to ApJL, including revisions based upon the referee report