Bibcode
Norris, Mark A.; Gebhardt, Karl; Sharples, Ray M.; Faifer, Favio Raul; Bridges, Terry; Forbes, Duncan A.; Forte, Juan C.; Zepf, Stephen E.; Beasley, Michael A.; Hanes, David A.; Proctor, Robert; Kannappan, Sheila J.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 421, Issue 2, pp. 1485-1498.
Advertised on:
4
2012
Citations
30
Refereed citations
29
Description
This paper presents further results from our spectroscopic study of the
globular cluster (GC) system of the group elliptical NGC 3923. From
observations made with the GMOS instrument on the Gemini South
Telescope, an additional 50 GC and ultra-compact dwarf (UCD) candidates
have been spectroscopically confirmed as members of the NGC 3923 system.
When the recessional velocities of these GCs are combined with the 29 GC
velocities reported previously, a total sample of 79 GC/UCD velocities
is produced. This sample extends to over 6 arcmin (> 6
Re˜ 30 kpc) from the centre of NGC 3923 and is used to
study the dynamics of the GC system and the dark matter content of NGC
3923. It is found that the GC system of NGC 3923 displays no appreciable
rotation, and that the projected velocity dispersion is constant with
radius within the uncertainties. The velocity dispersion profiles of the
integrated light and GC system of NGC 3923 are indistinguishable over
the region in which they overlap. We find some evidence that the diffuse
light and GCs of NGC 3923 have radially biased orbits within ˜130
arcsec. The application of axisymmetric orbit-based models to the GC and
integrated light velocity dispersion profiles demonstrates that a
significant increase in the mass-to-light ratio (from M/LV= 8
to 26) at large galactocentricradii is required to explain this
observation. We therefore confirm the presence of a dark matter halo in
NGC 3923. We find that dark matter comprises 17.5? per cent of the mass
within 1 Re, 41.2? per cent within 2 Re and 75.6?
per cent within the radius of our last kinematic tracer at 6.9
Re. The total dynamical mass within this radius is found to
be ? M&sun;. In common with other studies of large
ellipticals, we find that our derived dynamical mass profile is
consistently higher than that derived by X-ray observations, by a factor
of around 2.
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