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A.A. Dutton, S. Courteau (University of British Columbia)
The standard Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model for cosmological structure formation has been remarkably successful in explaining the observed large scale structure of the universe. At the scale of individual galaxies, however, CDM faces serious challenges; one of these is the discrepancy between the cuspy density profiles found in cosmological N-body simulations and the flatter density profiles inferred from optical galaxy rotation curves. We have developed a new comprehensive rotation curve mass modeling decomposition code and tested it on 6 mass modeling standards with published data, previously compiled by Blais-Ouellette et al. (2000). Our decompositions allow for all cosmologically-motivated types of halos, thin or thick disks, and variable disk M/L ratios. We investigate the allowed range of inner density profile shapes as a function of disk M/L ratio, adiabatic contraction of the halo, and non-spherical halos. This program is being developed for a new data set of 24 high and low surface brightness galaxies with wide-field optical/IR imaging and high-resolution long-slit H\alpha rotation curves.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #4
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.