Cited by 378Stellar, planetary, and galactic studiesGalaxies: Formation, Evolution, PhenomenaAstrophysical Phenomena and Observations

Dynamical modelling of the galactic bulge and bar: the Milky Way's pattern speed, stellar and dark matter mass distribution

Open access
Portail, Matthieu, Gerhard, Ortwin, Wegg, Christopher, Ness, Melissa·2017·Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Abstract

We construct a large set of dynamical models of the galactic bulge, bar and inner disc using the made-to-measure method. Our models are constrained to match the red clump giant density from a combination of the VVV, UKIDSS and 2MASS infrared surveys together with stellar kinematics in the bulge from the BRAVA and OGLE surveys, and in the entire bar region from the ARGOS Survey. We are able to recover the bar pattern speed and the stellar and dark matter mass distributions in the bar region, thus recovering the entire galactic effective potential. We find a bar pattern speed of 39.0 ± 3.5 km s− 1 kpc− 1, placing the bar corotation radius at 6.1 ± 0.5 kpc and making the Milky Way bar a typical fast rotator. We evaluate the stellar mass of the long bar and bulge structure to be Mbar/bulge = 1.88 ± 0.12 × 1010 M⊙, larger than the mass of disc in the bar region, Minner disc = 1.29 ± 0.12 × 1010 M⊙. The total dynamical mass in the bulge volume is 1.85 ± 0.05 × 1010 M⊙. Thanks to more extended kinematic data sets and recent measurement of the bulge initial mass function, our models have a low dark matter fraction in the bulge of 17 ± 2 per cent. We find a dark matter density profile which flattens to a shallow cusp or core in the bulge region. Finally, we find dynamical evidence for an extra central mass of ∼ 0.2 × 1010 M⊙, probably in a nuclear disc or discy pseudo-bulge.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1093/mnras/stw2819

Cites

155 of 155 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Hogg D. W., Casey A. R., Ness M., Rix H.-W., Foreman-Mackey D., 2016, preprint (arXiv:1601.05413) · arXiv

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Portail, M., Gerhard, O., Wegg, C., & Ness, M.
Affiliations
  • Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (DE)
  • Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (DE)
Corresponding author
  • Portail, Matthieu
  • Gerhard, Ortwin
Venue
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Published
2016-11-03
Volume
465
Issue
2
Pages
1621-1644
ISSN
  • 0035-8711 (ISSN-L)
  • 1365-2966
OpenAlex
W2555440354
Cited by
378
References
154
Citations by year
2026: 37 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 51 · 2019: 42 · 2018: 35 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 2
FWCI
16.71
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
  • HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
Keywords
Galactic bulge, galactic bars, bar pattern speed, red clump giants, stellar kinematics, effective potential, nuclear discs

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review