Astrolunch - 20th December

R.P. Saglia (Max-Planck Institut Fuer Extraterrestrische Physik):
The Dark Matter Halos of Coma Cluster Early-Type Galaxies

We model the extended stellar kinematics of 14 moderately bright, flattened early-type galaxies in the Coma cluster, using an axisymmetric, orbit superposition (Schwarzschild) code and a gravitational potential with a parametrized dark matter component. The sample confirms previous findings from spherical modeling that dark matter halos around early-type galaxies have on average times higher central densities than halos around spiral galaxies of the same luminosity. This implies a formation redshift . As a byproduct, the analysis delivers the dynamical estimate of the mass-to-light ratio of the stellar component of the galaxies. The comparison with the values derived by modeling the stellar populations is always consistent with a shallow stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) and sometimes rules out a steep (Salpeter) IMF. Finally, the derived distribution of stellar orbits suggests that early-type galaxies are flattened by anisotropy.