Related papers: A Comparison of Simple Galaxy Mass Estimators
We compare the performance of mass estimators for elliptical galaxies that rely on the directly observable surface brightness and velocity dispersion profiles, without invoking computationally expensive detailed modeling. These methods…
We study dynamical models for elliptical galaxies, deriving the projected kinematic profiles in a form that is valid for general surface-brightness profiles and (spherical) total mass profiles, without the need for any explicit…
High-resolution N-body simulations are used to investigate systematic trends in the mass profiles and total masses of clusters as derived from 3 simple estimators: (1) the weak gravitational lensing shear field under the assumption of an…
The two most common mass estimators that use velocity dispersions and positions of objects in a stellar system, the virial mass estimator (VME) and the projected mass estimator (PME), are revisited and tested using N-body experiments. We…
The accuracy and robustness of a simple method to estimate the total mass profile of a galaxy is tested using a sample of 65 cosmological zoom-simulations of individual galaxies. The method only requires information on the optical surface…
We investigate the reliability of mass estimators based on the observable velocity dispersion and half-light radius $R_\mathrm{h}$ for dispersion-supported galaxies. We show how to extend them to flattened systems and provide simple…
Forthcoming large-scale spectroscopic surveys will soon provide data on thousands of galaxy clusters. It is important that the systematics of the various mass estimation techniques are well understood and calibrated. We compare three…
The stellar density profile a galaxy is typically summarised with two numbers: total stellar mass and half-light radius. The total mass of a galaxy, however, is not a well-defined quantity, due to the finite depth of photometric…
To solve some problems of celestial mechanics and astrophysics, three new models of an elliptical galaxy (EG) have been created, which are in good agreement with modern understanding of the structure of such galaxies. Based on these models,…
We have previously reported the discovery of strong gravitational lensing by faint elliptical galaxies using the WFPC2 on HST and here we investigate their potential usefulness in putting constraints on lens mass models. We compare various…
Mass modelling of early-type systems is a thorny issue. In this paper, we present a new mass modelling formalism for ellipticals that invokes no observations other than the central velocity dispersion ($\sigma_0$) and photometry. The…
We use a suite of high-resolution cosmological dwarf galaxy simulations to test the accuracy of commonly-used mass estimators from Walker et al.(2009) and Wolf et al.(2010), both of which depend on the observed line-of-sight velocity…
We investigate the impact of mergers on the mass estimation of galaxy clusters using $N$-body + hydrodynamical simulation data. We estimate virial mass from these data and compare it with real mass. When the smaller subcluster's mass is…
The projected (PME) and virial mass estimator (VME) are revisited and tested using an N-body equilibrium system. It is found that the PME can overestimate the mass by approx 40% if a cluster is sampled only about its effective radius, Re.…
Because of their simplicity, axisymmetric mass distributions are often used to model gravitational lenses. Since galaxies are usually observed to have elliptical light distributions, mass distributions with elliptical density contours offer…
Elliptical galaxies are modelled with a a 4-component model: Sersic stars, LCDM dark matter (DM), hot gas and central black hole. DM is negligible in the inner regions, which are dominated by stars and the central black hole. This prevents…
We use numerical simulations to explore biases that arise in dynamical estimates of the mean mass profile for a collection of galaxy clusters that have been stacked to make a composite. There are three types of bias. One arises from…
Galaxy lenses are frequently modeled as an elliptical mass distribution with external shear and isothermal spheres to account for secondary and line-of-sight galaxies. There is statistical evidence that some fraction of observed quads are…
Black hole mass is a fundamental property of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). In the distant universe, black hole mass is commonly estimated using the MgII, Hbeta, or Halpha emission line widths and the optical/UV continuum or line…
Starting with the spherical Jeans equation, we show that there exists a radius where the mass enclosed depends only on the projected tangential velocity dispersion, assuming that the anisotropy profile slowly varies. This is…