2008/03/31 by R. H. Sanders, D. D. Land
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Context (archaeology) #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Fundamental plane (elliptical galaxies) #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gravitational lens #Modified Newtonian dynamics #RADIUS #Weak gravitational lensing #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.13378.x
Minor revisions in response to referee. Revised title. Accepted in MNRAS
arxiv created 2008/04/22 · openalex publication_date 2008/08/04 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Bolton et al. have derived a mass-based fundamental plane using photometric and spectroscopic observations of 36 strong gravitational lenses. The lensing allows a direct determination of the mass-surface density and so avoids the usual dependence on mass-to-light ratio. We consider this same sample in the context of Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) and demonstrate that the observed mass-based fundamental plane coincides with the MOND fundamental plane determined previously for a set of polytropic spheres chosen to match the observed range of effective radii and velocity dispersions in elliptical galaxies. Moreover, the observed projected mass within one-half of an effective radius is consistent with the mass in visible stars plus a small additional component of ‘phantom dark matter’ resulting from the MOND contribution to photon deflection.