English

New strong constraints on the central behaviour of spherical galactic models -- No NFW cusp

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2021-10-20 v2 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

We first stress that any spherically symmetric galactic model whose integrated mass profile M(r)0M (r) \to 0 as r0r \to 0 is physically consistent close to the centre only provided that the circular velocity vc(r)0v_c (r) \to 0 and the gravitational field g(r)0g (r) \to 0 as r0r \to 0. Next, we apply such a statement to a broad class of five-parameter spherical galactic models, which includes most of those used in astrophysics and cosmology. In particular, we discover that the Jaffe and Hernquist models can only be trusted for r0.2Rer \gtrsim 0.2 \, R_e, while the NFW model cannot describe the central region either of regular galaxy clusters or of pure dark matter halos, thereby failing to predict any central cusp.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2109.13284,
  title  = {New strong constraints on the central behaviour of spherical galactic models -- No NFW cusp},
  author = {Marco Roncadelli and Giorgio Galanti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.13284},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

Improved version, 7 pages, 8 figures