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Dark and baryonic matter in spiral galaxies: a joint analysis of observations and numerical simulations

Grant number: 11/21678-0
Support Opportunities:Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
Effective date (Start): April 01, 2012
Effective date (End): August 31, 2016
Field of knowledge:Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Astronomy - Extragalactic Astrophysics
Principal Investigator:Claudia Lucia Mendes de Oliveira
Grantee:Juan Carlos Basto Pineda
Host Institution: Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (IAG). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
Associated scholarship(s):12/21375-0 - Improving mass models of galaxies using numerical simulations, BE.EP.DD

Abstract

This thesis deals with the distribution of dark matter in galactic scales. The main evidence of the presence of dark matter in galaxies, and the way it is distributed, comes from their rotation curves, which can not be explained by the luminous matter alone. On the other hand, numerical simulations of structure formation based on "Lambda" CDM successfully explain observations of the Universe in large scales, but they are in contradiction with rotation curves observations and in particular with the inferred shapes for galactic halos. This current contradiction is known as the cusp-core problem, and it will be one of the main topics of study of this thesis. In the first part of this project we intend to determine the radial distribution profiles for dark and baryonic matter for a sample of about a hundred nearby spiral galaxies, for which 2D velocity maps and R-band CCD photometry is available. This is the largest sample ever analysed with homogeneously observed and reduced data, allowing us to do a comparative study of the cusp-core problem for several morphological types and galactic masses. In the second part of this thesis we intend to investigate the signatures that luminous structures might imprint on the galactic velocity maps, in a novel research work, in 2D, about the relations between luminous and total matter at small scales. Finally we plan, if possible, to develop simulations of galactic systems in order to improve the understanding about the cusp-core problem and the relationship between baryons and dark matter at galactic scales. (AU)

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Scientific publications
(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)
PINEDA, JUAN C. B.; HAYWARD, CHRISTOPHER C.; SPRINGEL, VOLKER; DE OLIVEIRA, CLAUDIA MENDES. Rotation curve fitting and its fatal attraction to cores in realistically simulated galaxy observations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, v. 466, n. 1, p. 63-87, . (12/21375-0, 14/07684-5, 11/51680-6, 11/21678-0)

Please report errors in scientific publications list by writing to: cdi@fapesp.br.