Theory Group Qualifier

Maria Jose Bustamante, UT-Austin

"Central dark matter density profiles: The LEO I case"

9:00am, RLM 9.222

Abstract: Motivated by the core/cusp problem we make new central kinematics measurements of the Milky Way dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxy Leo I. Preliminary analysis shows a rise in velocity dispersion within the central 15 arc seconds. This would be consistent with a black hole ~10^4 times the Msun. This dynamical models also require a dark matter halo, though smaller than currently published values. Further axisymmetric non-parametric orbit based models would help put better constraints on this result. The talk will concentrate on the specifics of the data reduction, kinematics and dynamical models going into this preliminary results. Special emphasis will be given to a particular systematic related to stellar density that we came across during our analysis. We believe most other dSph kinematics might be subject to this bias and should possibly be re-evaluated.