One Law To Rule Them All: The Radial Acceleration Relation of Galaxies

2016/10/31 by Federico Lelli, Stacy S. McGaugh, James M. Schombert +1 · 365 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Acceleration #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Baryon #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Disc galaxy #Dwarf galaxy problem #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy rotation curve #Stellar mass #Tully–Fisher relation #astro-ph.GA

paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/836/2/152

published in The Astrophysical Journal 836(2), 152 (IOP Publishing) · Accepted for publication in ApJ (23 pages, 14 figures, 4 tables). Added discussion on recent claims from numerical simulations

openalex created_date 2016/11/04 · arxiv created 2017/01/23 · openalex publication_date 2017/02/16 · arxiv updated 2017/02/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We study the link between baryons and dark matter in 240 galaxies with spatially resolved kinematic data. Our sample spans 9 dex in stellar mass and includes all morphological types. We consider (i) 153 late-type galaxies (LTGs; spirals and irregulars) with gas rotation curves from the SPARC database; (ii) 25 early-type galaxies (ETGs; ellipticals and lenticulars) with stellar and HI data from ATLAS³D or X-ray data from Chandra; and (iii) 62 dwarf spheroidals (dSphs) with individual-star spectroscopy. We find that LTGs, ETGs, and "classical" dSphs follow the same radial acceleration relation: the observed acceleration (gobs) correlates with that expected from the distribution of baryons (gbar) over 4 dex. The relation coincides with the 1:1 line (no dark matter) at high accelerations but systematically deviates from unity below a critical scale of ~10^-10 m/s². The observed scatter is remarkably small (<0.13 dex) and largely driven by observational uncertainties. The residuals do not correlate with any global or local galaxy property (baryonic mass, gas fraction, radius, etc.). The radial acceleration relation is tantamount to a Natural Law: when the baryonic contribution is measured, the rotation curve follows, and vice versa. Including ultrafaint dSphs, the relation may extend by another 2 dex and possibly flatten at gbar<10^-12 m/s², but these data are significantly more uncertain. The radial acceleration relation subsumes and generalizes several well-known dynamical properties of galaxies, like the Tully-Fisher and Faber-Jackson relations, the "baryon-halo" conspiracies, and Renzo's rule.

Citations

• A modification of the Newtonian dynamics - Implications for galaxies

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