A dearth of dark matter in ordinary elliptical galaxies

Aaron J. Romanowsky*, Nigel G. Douglas, Magda Arnaboldi, Konrad Kuijken, Michael R. Merrifield, Nicola R. Napolitano, Massimo Capaccioli, Kenneth C. Freeman

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    338 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The kinematics of the outer parts of three intermediate-luminosity elliptical galaxies were studied with the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph. The galaxies' velocity-dispersion profiles were found to decline with the radius, and dynamical modeling of the data indicates the presence of little if any dark matter in these galaxies' halos. This unexpected result conflicts with findings in other galaxy types and poses a challenge to current galaxy formation theories.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1696-1698
    Number of pages3
    JournalScience
    Volume301
    Issue number5640
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 19 Sept 2003

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