The RAVE survey : the Galactic escape speed and the mass of the Milky Way

By T. Piffl, C. Scannapieco, J. Binney, Matthias Steinmetz, R. Scholz, M. Williams, R. D. de Jong, G. Kordopatis, G. Matijevič, O. Bienaymé and 15 more. 2013

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We made new estimates of the Galactic escape speed at various Galactocentric radii using the latest data release of the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE DR4). Compared to previous studies we have a database that is larger by a factor of 10, as well as reliable distance estimates for almost all stars. Our analysis is based on statistical analysis of a rigorously selected sample of 90 highvelocity halo stars from RAVE and a previously published data set. We calibrated and extensively tested our method using a suite of cosmological simulations of the formation of Milky Way-sized galaxies. Our best estimate of the local Galactic escape speed, which we define as the minimum speed required to reach three virial radii R340, is 533 +54 −41 km s −1 (90% confidence), with an additional 4% systematic uncertainty, where R340 is the Galactocentric radius encompassing a mean overdensity of 340 times the critical density for closure in the Universe. From the escape speed we further derived estimates of the mass of the Galaxy using a simple mass model with two options for the mass profile of the dark matter halo: an unaltered and an adiabatically contracted Navarro, Frenk & White (NFW) sphere. If we fix the local circular velocity, the latter profile yields a significantly higher mass than the uncontracted halo, but if we instead use the statistics for halo concentration parameters in large cosmological simulations as a constraint, we find very similar masses for both models. Our best estimate for M340, the mass interior to R340 (dark matter and baryons), is 1.3 +0.4 −0.3 × 10 12 M� (corresponds to M200 = 1.6 +0.5 −0.4 × 10 12 M� ). This estimate is in good agreement with recently published, independent mass estimates based on the kinematics of more distant halo stars and the satellite galaxy LeoI.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bed646c2b510daf55a163cd7a04990b7e1ed6ba7

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Citations in the corpus

The mass distribution and gravitational potential of the Milky Way (2016, background): “Piffl et al.(2014a) also noted that the axis ratio of the dark-matter halo has an important influence on the derived local density when interpreting dynamical models of the disc, withρh,⊙ ∝ q−0.89.”
Introducing the Illustris Project: the evolution of galaxy populations across cosmic time (2014, background): “However, the number of ‘cluster-scale’ haloes with M200c > 1014 M is 10, and the number of ‘Milky-way-like’ haloes with 1012 < M200c < 2 × 1012 M [roughly corresponding to the Piffl et al. (2014) estimate] is 733.”
THE RADIAL VELOCITY EXPERIMENT (RAVE): FIFTH DATA RELEASE (2013, methodology): “…recent years a wave-like pattern in the stellar velocity distribution was uncovered (Williams et al. 2013) and the total mass of the Milky Way was measured using the RAVE extreme-velocity stars (Piffl et al. 2014a), as was the local dark matter density (Bienaymé et al. 2014; Piffl et al. 2014b).”
The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic, and Integrated Properties (2016, methodology): “The thin disk is insufficiently constrained in the RAVE survey because the elevated sightlines in latitude do not extend far enough in radius and are susceptible to vertical dispersion gradients (cf. Piffl et al. 2014a, Sanders & Binney 2015).”
Constraining the Galaxy's dark halo with RAVE stars (2014, methodology): “Piffl et al. (2014) recently found a lower value of 533+54−41 km s −1, but for this they used a modified definition of the escape speed as the minimum speed needed to reach 3Rvir.”
The local dark matter density (2014, background): “…reduced mass of the dark matter-nucleus system; v = |v| is the speed of the dark matter particles; f(v, t) is the velocity distribution function; vmax = 533 +54 −41 km/s (at 90% confidence) is the Galactic escape speed (Piffl et al., 2014a); and ρ̃dm is the dark matter density within the detector.”
Low-mass dark matter search with CDMSlite (2017, methodology): “[54] demonstrates an anticorrelation between Θ0 and vesc, meaning that the computed uncertainty band, which samples the velocity values independently, is an overestimate of the combined uncertainty.”
The milky way total mass profile as inferred from Gaia DR2 (2019, background): “…galaxies (e.g. Watkins et al. 2010; Li et al. 2017; Patel et al. 2017; Callingham et al. 2019b), high velocity stars (e,g, Smith et al. 2007; Piffl et al. 2014; Fragione & Loeb 2017; Rossi et al. 2017; Deason et al. 2019b), the orbits of tidal streams (e.g. Gibbons et al. 2014; Bowden et…”
Using the Milky Way satellites to study interactions between cold dark matter and radiation (2014, background): “…by calculations that attempt to reconstruct the MW mass distribution based on the measured kinematics of the observed satellites and stars (Xue et al. 2008; Boylan-Kolchin et al. 2013; Piffl et al. 2014), we consider DM haloes to be MW-like if their mass is in the range (0.8− 2.7)× 1012M .”
The Circular Velocity Curve of the Milky Way from 5 to 25 kpc (2018, background): “41vir 0.52 1.99= - + that is roughly twice as high as our value, although the measurements have large uncertainties (see also Piffl et al. 2014; Küpper et al. 2015; Bland-Hawthorn & Gerhard 2016; Huang et al. 2016).”
Modulation Effects in Dark Matter-Electron Scattering Experiments (2015, background): “Form factors are illustrated for 100 MeV DM scattering oﬀ a 5 p shell Xenon electron and a 3 d shell Germanium electron, both with E er = 15 eV. where N esc is a normalization factor, and we take v 0 ≈ 220 km/s [28] and the escape velocity v esc ≈ 550 km/s [29].”
Mass and shape of the Milky Way’s dark matter halo with globular clusters from Gaia and Hubble (2018, methodology): “…e.g. Gonzalez et al. 2013; Eadie & Harris 2016; Sohn et al. 2018), estimates of the escape velocity (e.g. Smith et al. 2007; Piffl et al. 2014a), the velocity distribution of either fast moving stars (e.g. Gnedin et al. 2010) or the dynamics of nearby stars (e.g. McMillan 2011; Piffl et al. 2014b).”
ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS: PROPERTIES OF THE STELLAR HALO AND THE MILKY WAY MASS DISTRIBUTION (2014, background): “…of the Galaxy, e.g., the timing argument (Kahn & Woltjer 1959; Li & White 2008), the local escape speed (Leonard & Tremaine 1990; Smith et al. 2007; Piffl et al. 2014), the orbital evolution ofthe satellite galaxies and globular clusters (Lin & Lynden-Bell 1982; Boylan-Kolchin et al. 2013),…”