The DOI matches its Crossref record; 95 of the 95 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Estimating the dark matter halo mass of our Milky Way using dynamical tracers
Open accessAbstract
The mass of the dark matter halo of the Milky Way can be estimated by fitting analytical models to the phase-space distribution of dynamical tracers. We test this approach using realistic mock stellar haloes constructed from the Aquarius N-body simulations of dark matter haloes in the Λ cold dark matter cosmology. We extend the standard treatment to include a Navarro–Frenk–White potential and use a maximum likelihood method to recover the parameters describing the simulated haloes from the positions and velocities of their mock halo stars. We find that the estimate of halo mass is highly correlated with the estimate of halo concentration. The best-fitting halo masses within the virial radius, R200, are biased, ranging from a 40 per cent underestimate to a 5 per cent overestimate in the best case (when the tangential velocities of the tracers are included). There are several sources of bias. Deviations from dynamical equilibrium can potentially cause significant bias; deviations from spherical symmetry are relatively less important. Fits to stars at different galactocentric radii can give different mass estimates. By contrast, the model gives good constraints on the mass within the half-mass radius of tracers even when restricted to tracers within 60 kpc. The recovered velocity anisotropies of tracers, β, are biased systematically, but this does not affect other parameters if tangential velocity data are used as constraints.
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Cites
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Self-citationThe Structure of Cold Dark Matter Halos
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Self-citationThe Aquarius Project: the subhaloes of galactic haloes
Springel, V., Wang, J., Vogelsberger, M., Ludlow, A. D., Jenkins, A. R., Helmi, A., Navarro, J. F., Frenk, C. S., & White, S. D. M. (2008) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.14066.x · Cited by 1,990
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TODDLERS: A new UV-millimeter emission library for star-forming regions
Kapoor, A. U., Baes, M., van der Wel, A., Gebek, A., Camps, P., Smith, A., Boquien, M., Andreadis, N., & Vicens, S. (2024) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202451207 · Cited by 7
Space astrometry with Gaia: Advances in understanding our Galaxy
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The Dark Matter Content of Milky Way Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies: Draco, Sextans, and Ursa Minor
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“…consensus that dynamical modeling generally imposes strongest constraints on the total mass enclosed in the half-number radius of tracers (e.g. Wolf et al. 2010; Walker & Peñar-rubia 2011; Wang et al. 2015; Han et al. 2016a,b; Genina et al. 2020; Wang et al. 2022; Li et al. 2022; Shi et al. 2024).”
Self-citationSharma, M., Theuns, T., & Frenk, C. S. (2018) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/sty1319 · Cited by 5
“In this section we identify MW-like galaxies with central eagle galaxies that inhabit a dark matter halo of mass Mh in the range 1012 < Mh < 10 12.5 h−1M (see e.g. Wang et al. (2015) and references therein for motivation of this range).”
BackgroundInfluentialSelf-citationSatellite galaxies as better tracers of the Milky Way halo mass
Han, J., Wang, W., & Li, Z. (2019) · Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union · doi:10.1017/s1743921319008020 · Cited by 5
“It has been shown that unjustified assumptions in such modelling can lead to significant biases (Wang et al. 2015; Han et al. 2016b).”
BackgroundInfluentialSelf-citationShi, R., Wang, W., Li, Z., Ling, Z., Smith, A. G., Cole, S., Gao, H., Chen, X., Li, Q., & Han, J. (2024) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad64cf · Cited by 4
“…in many previous studies, which find that the mass within the half-mass radius of tracers is a sweet point, which can be constrained better than the masses within other radii (e.g. Wolf et al. 2010; Walker & Peñarrubia 2011; Wang et al. 2015; González-Samaniego et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2020).”
BackgroundSelf-citationWarm dark matter model with a few keV mass is bad for the too-big-to-fail problem
Kang, X. (2019) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stz3118 · Cited by 4
“Such an effort is only recently achieved from the state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations, such as NIHAO (Wang et al. 2015; Buck et al. 2019), APOSTLE (Sawala et al. 2016) and FIRE-2 project (Wetzel et al. 2016; Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2019).”
Eadie, G. M., Harris, W. E., Widrow, L. M., & Springford, A. (2015) · Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union · doi:10.1017/s1743921315008625 · Cited by 3
Deciphering Dark Matter with Cosmological Observations
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Galaxy rotation curves in the light of the Spinor Theory of Gravity
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Probing non-thermal light DM with structure formation and $N_\mathrm{eff}$Preprint
Baumholzer, S., & Schwaller, P. (2021) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2022/06/013
Bird, S., Xue, X.-X., Liu, C., Shen, J., Flynn, C., & Yang, C. (2019) · Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union · doi:10.1017/s1743921319008299
“Our current knowledge of the Milky Way’s total mass is uncertain by a factor of two (see related discussions, e.g. Wang et al. 2015; Eadie & Harris 2016; Eadie & Jurić 2019; Callingham et al. 2019).”
MethodMaking the sum greater than its parts
Speagle, J. S., & Eadie, G. M. (2021) · Nature Astronomy · doi:10.1038/s41550-021-01509-7
Beyond the Local Group. I. Cosmic Filaments Govern the Spatial Alignments of Galaxy Pairs
Wang, P. (2025) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ae19ef
“0 × 10 12 M ⊙ ( e.g., W. Wang et al. 2015, 2020, and references within ) .”
Characterizing the Velocity Anisotropy of the Milky Way’s Stellar Halo
Barbosa, F. O., Pérez-Villegas, Á., Rossi, S., Santucci, R. M., Aguilar, L., Perottoni, H. D., Limberg, G., Borbolato, L., & Nogueira-Santos, J. V. (2026) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ae8fd6
“W. Wang et al. ( 2015 ) showed that adopting a distribution function for an incomplete velocity space biases the velocity anisotropy.”
Metadata
- Authors
- Wang, W., Han, J., Cooper, A. P., Cole, S., Frenk, C., & Lowing, B.
- Affiliations
- Durham University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Wang, Wenting
- Venue
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2015-08-13
- Volume
- 453
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 377-400
- ISSN
- 0035-8711 (ISSN-L)
- 1365-2966
- OpenAlex
- W1883919649
- Cited by
- 116
- References
- 95
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 9
- FWCI
- 12.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (publishedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- Durham University (ST/K00042X/1, ST/K003267/1, ST/H008519/1)
- Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/I00162X/1, ST/H008519, ST/K00042X/1, ST/M007006/1, ST/L00075X/1, ST/H008519/1, ST/K003267/1)
- Leibniz-Gemeinschaft
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena
- Keywords
- Milky Way dark matter halo, halo mass estimation, stellar halo, Navarro-Frenk-White profile, halo concentration, mass bias, velocity anisotropy, dynamic equilibrium, Aquarius simulations, maximum likelihood fitting
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