Globular clusters and planetary nebulae kinematics and X-ray emission in the early-type galaxy NGC 5128

Abstract

The estimates of the mass of the galaxy NGC 5128 based on the different mass tracers, globular clusters (GCs) and planetary nebulae (PNe), are presented. These estimates are compared with the estimate based on the X-ray methodology and it is found that the results for the mass (and mass-to-light ratio) for all three approaches are in very good agreement interior to 25 arcmin; beyond 25 arcmin the X-rays predict the mass which is too high with respect to the one found using GCs and PNe. Some possible explanations for this discrepancy were discussed. The Jeans equation is also solved and its predictions for the velocity dispersion are then compared with the observed values, which extend to ~8 effective radii in the case of the GCs and ~15 effective radii in the case of the PNe. It is found that interior to ~25 arcmin (~5 effective radii) dark matter does not dominate because the total mass-to-light ratio in the B band in solar units is less than 10. Based on the GCs and PNe beyond ~25 arcmin the total mass-to-light ratio increases to ~14 (at ~80 arcmin) which indicates the existence of dark matter in the outer regions of NGC 5128.

Keywords

• galaxies: kinematics and dynamics
• galaxies: elliptical and lenticular
• cD
• galaxies: structure
• dark matter
• galaxies: individual (NGC 5128)