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OATS-DAUT SEMINAR
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Speaker: Gary Mamon (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris)

Title: Kinematical and dynamical modelling of elliptical galaxies

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Abstract: While spiral galaxies have easily measurable rotation curves, whose flat shapes are best explained by dark matter halos, it is much more difficult to measure the presence of dark matter around elliptical galaxies. Much excitement was generated from the analysis of Romanowsky et al. (Science, 2003) who measured low velocity dispersions for planetary nebulae around selected nearby giant ellipticals, especially because their kineamtical modelling of their observations led them to conclude to a strong lack of dark matter around these ellipticals. After a long review of how to extract the mass profiles from spectroscopic observations of the internal kinematics of spherical systems, I will describe an analysis (recently published in Nature) of the elliptical-like galaxies, produced in detailed simulations of major mergers of realistic spiral galaxies. The merger remnants indeed look very much like elliptical galaxies, and I will describe and explain the discrepancy with the result reported in Science.
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