STARS, GAS, AND DARK MATTER IN THE SOLAR NEIGHBORHOOD

By C. McKee, Antonio Parravano, D. Hollenbach. 2015

162 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We reanalyze data on the surface densities and vertical distribution of baryonic matter in the solar neighborhood and tabulate the results. We find a local total surface density of M dwarfs of 17.3 ± 2.3 M ⊙ pc − 2 ?> , whcih is significantly higher than previous values. Our result for the total local surface density of visible stars (main-sequence stars and giants), 27.0 ± 2.7 M ⊙ pc − 2 ?> , is close to previous estimates due to a cancellation of opposing effects: more mass in M dwarfs, less mass in the others. The total local surface density in white dwarfs is 4.9 ± 0.6 M ⊙ pc − 2 ?> ; in brown dwarfs, it is ∼ 1.2 M ⊙ pc − 2 ?> , but with considerable uncertainty. We find that the total local surface density of stars and stellar remnants is 33.4 ± 3 M ⊙ pc − 2 ?> , which is somewhat less than previous estimates but within the errors of many of them. We analyze data on 21 cm emission and absorption and obtain good agreement with recent results on the local amount of neutral atomic hydrogen obtained with the Planck satellite. The local surface density of gas is 13.7 ± 1.6 M ⊙ pc − 2 ?> . The total baryonic mass surface density that we derive for the solar neighborhood is 47.1 ± 3.4 M ⊙ pc − 2 ?> ( 43.8 M ⊙ pc − 2 ?> within 1.1 kpc of the midplane). Combining these results with others’ measurements of the total surface density of matter within 1–1.1 kpc of the plane, we find that the local density of dark matter is &rgr; DM = 0.013 ± 0.003 M ⊙ pc − 3 = 0.49 ± 0.13 ?> GeV cm − 3 ?> . The local density of all matter is 0.097 ± 0.013 M ⊙ pc − 3 ?> . We discuss limitations on the properties of a possible thin disk of dark matter.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cc77f00a8b277d6c69c33a5c3c58d5e19c2778d3

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Citations in the corpus

The milky way total mass profile as inferred from Gaia DR2 (2019, methodology): “(53) from McKee et al. (2015), combined with the Eilers et al. (2019) rotation curve to obtain ∆Σ = 9 M pc−2.”
THE SHAPE OF THE INNER MILKY WAY HALO FROM OBSERVATIONS OF THE PAL 5 AND GD–1 STELLAR STREAMS (2016, background): “…detail by the Gaia satellite (de Bruijne 2012)—that we can determine the Milky Way’s mass and light budget (e.g., Flynn et al. 2006; Bovy & Rix 2013; McKee et al. 2015), the dark–matter halo’s shape and radial profile near and within its scale radius (e.g., Olling & Merrifield 2000; Binney &…”
A unified model for galactic discs: star formation, turbulence driving, and mass transport (2017, background): “In the Solar neighbourhood, McKee et al. (2015) obtain estimates ρg,mp = 0.041 M pc−3, ρ∗ = 0.043 M pc−3, and ρd ρ∗.”
The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic, and Integrated Properties (2016, background): “McKee et al. (2015) give the local mass density as ρtot ≈ 0.097 ± 0.013 M pc−3 (0.49 ± 0.13 GeV cm−3) comprising stars (0.043 ± 0.04 M pc−3), gas (0.041 ± 0.04 M pc−3), baryons (0.084 ± 0.04 M pc−3), and dark matter (0.013 ± 0.003 M pc−3).”
The age–metallicity structure of the Milky Way disc using APOGEE (2017, background): “However, as mentioned above in Section 5.1, our results, after accounting for systematic uncertainties, appear in good agreement with other, more recent estimates (McKee et al. 2015).”