Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T01:10:29.707Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Tracing the Galactic Halo: Obtaining Bayesian mass estimates of the Galaxy in the presence of incomplete data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2016

Gwendolyn Eadie
Affiliation:
Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4M1, Canada email: eadiegm@mcmaster.ca, harris@physics.mcmaster.ca
William Harris
Affiliation:
Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4M1, Canada email: eadiegm@mcmaster.ca, harris@physics.mcmaster.ca
Lawrence Widrow
Affiliation:
Dept. of Physics, Engineering Physics, & Astronomy, Queen's University Stirling Hall, 64 Bader Lane, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6 email: widrow@astro.queensu.ca
Aaron Springford
Affiliation:
Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics, Queen's University Jeffrey Hall, University Drive, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada email: aaron.springford@queensu.ca
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The mass and cumulative mass profile of the Galaxy are its most fundamental properties. Estimating these properties, however, is not a trivial problem. We rely on the kinematic information from Galactic satellites such as globular clusters and dwarf galaxies, and this data is incomplete and subject to measurement uncertainty. In particular, the complete 3D velocity vectors of objects are sometimes unavailable, and there may be selection biases due to both the distribution of objects around the Galaxy and our measurement position. On the other hand, the uncertainties of these data are fairly well understood. Thus, we would like to incorporate these uncertainties and the incomplete data into our estimate of the Milky Way's mass. The Bayesian paradigm offers a way to deal with both the missing kinematic data and measurement errors using a hierarchical model. An application of this method to the Milky Way halo mass profile, using the kinematic data for globular clusters and dwarf satellites, is shown.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2016 

References

Eadie, G., Harris, W., & Widrow, L. M. 2015, ApJ, 806, 54Google Scholar
Eadie, G., Harris, W., & Springford, A. 2015, Joint Statistical Meetings Proceedings, in press.Google Scholar
Hernquist, L. 1990 ApJ, 356, 359Google Scholar
Johnson, D. & Soderblom, D. 1987 AJ 93, 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Little, B. & Tremaine, S. 1987, ApJ, 320, 493Google Scholar
Wang, W., Han, J., Cooper, A., Shaun, C., Frenk, C., & Lowing, B. 2015 MNRAS, 453, 377Google Scholar