Dark matter distribution in the Draco dwarf from velocity moments

Ewa L. Lokas, Gary A. Mamon, Francisco Prada

Published 2004-11-26, updated 2005-08-10Version 2

We study the distribution of dark matter in the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy by modelling the moments of the line-of-sight velocity distribution of stars obtained from new velocity data of Wilkinson et al. The luminosity distribution is approximated by a Sersic profile fitted to the data by Odenkirchen et al. We assume that the dark matter density profile is given by a formula with an inner cusp and an outer exponential cut-off, as recently proposed by Kazantzidis et al. as a result of simulations of tidal stripping of dwarfs by the potential of the Milky Way. The dark matter distribution is characterized by the total dark mass and the cut-off radius. The models have arbitrary velocity anisotropy parameter assumed to be constant with radius. We estimate the three parameters by fitting both the line-of-sight velocity dispersion and kurtosis profiles, which allows us to break the degeneracy between the mass distribution and velocity anisotropy. The results of the fitting procedure turn out to be very different depending on the stellar sample considered, that is on our choice of stars with discrepant velocities to be discarded as interlopers. For our most reliable sample, the model parameters remain weakly constrained, but the robust result is the preference for weakly tangential stellar orbits and high mass-to-light ratios. The best-fitting total mass is then 7 10^7 M_sun, much lower than recent estimates, while the mass-to-light ratio is M/L_V = 300 and almost constant with radius. If the binary fraction in the stellar population of Draco turns out to be significant, the kurtosis of the global velocity distribution will be smaller and the orbits inferred will be more tangential, while the resulting mass estimate lower.