The Cen A galaxy group: Dynamical mass and missing baryons

Oliver Müller*, Federico Lelli, Benoit Famaey, Marcel S. Pawlowski, Katja Fahrion, Marina Rejkuba, Michael Hilker, Helmut Jerjen

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    13 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The nearby elliptical galaxy Centaurus A (Cen A) is surrounded by a flattened system of dwarf satellite galaxies with coherent motions. Using a novel Bayesian approach, we measured the mean rotation velocity vrot and velocity dispersion Ï int of the satellite system. We found vrot/Ï inta∼ 0.7, indicating that the satellite system has non-negligible rotational support. Using Jeans equations, we measured a circular velocity of 258 km s-1 and a dynamical mass of 1.2 1013 M· within 800 kpc. In a I cold dark matter cosmological context, we found that the Cen A group has a baryon fraction Mb/M200∼ 0.035 and is missing 14;77% of the cosmologically available baryons. Consequently, Cen A should have a hot intergalactic medium with a mass of ∼8 1011 M·, which is more than ∼20 times larger than current X-ray estimates. Intriguingly, the whole Cen A group lies on the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation defined by individual rotationally supported galaxies, as expected in Milgromian dynamics (MOND) with no need of missing baryons.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article numberA57
    JournalAstronomy and Astrophysics
    Volume662
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2022

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