English

Unraveling the Complexity of Dwarf Galaxy Dynamics: A study of Binary Orbital Motions

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2023-08-30 v2 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

We investigate the impact of binary orbital motions on the dynamical modeling of dwarf galaxies with intrinsic line-of-sight velocity dispersions (σvr\sigma_{v_r}) of 1 to 9 km/s. Using dwarf galaxies from the Auriga level-2 and level-3 simulations, we apply the Jeans Anisotropic Multi-Gaussian Expansion modelling to tracer stars before and after including binaries to recover the dynamical masses. The recovered total masses within the half-mass radius of tracers, M(<rhalf)M(<r_\mathrm{half}), are always inflated due to binary motions, with greater inflations occurring for smaller σvr\sigma_{v_r}. However, many dwarf galaxies experience central density deflated due to binary motions, with little dependences on σvr\sigma_{v_r}. This is due to the negative radial gradients in the velocity dispersion profiles, with the fractional inflation in σvr\sigma_{v_r} due to binaries more significant in outskirts. An extreme binary fraction of 70% can lead to central density deflation of up to 10-20% at 3 km/s<σvr<<\sigma_{v_r}<8 km/s, with M(<rhalf)M(<r_\mathrm{half}) inflated by 4% at 9 km/s and up to 15% at 3 km/s. A lower binary fraction of 36% leads to similar deflations, with the inflations decreasing to approximately 10% at 3 km/s and becoming statistically insignificant. The choice of binary orbit distribution models does not result in significant differences, and observational errors tend to slightly weaken the deflations in the recovered central density. Two observations separated by one year to exclude binaries lead to almost zero inflations/deflations for a binary fraction of 36% over 3 km/s<σvr<<\sigma_{v_r}<9 km/s. For σvr\sigma_{v_r}\sim1 km/s to 3 km/s, a binary fraction of 70% (36%) still results in 60% (30%) to 10% (1%) of inflations in M(<rhalf)M(<r_\mathrm{half}), even with two-epoch observation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2306.04311,
  title  = {Unraveling the Complexity of Dwarf Galaxy Dynamics: A study of Binary Orbital Motions},
  author = {Wenting Wang and Ling Zhu and Yipeng Jing and Robert J. J. Grand and Zhaozhou Li and Xiaoting Fu and Lu Li and Jiaxin Han and Ting S. Li and Fabo Feng and Carlos Frenk},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.04311},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

accepted by ApJ, comments welcome