Contatto di riferimento: Eros Vanzella
Partecipanti: Alessandro Sonnenfeld (Kavli IPMU, The University of Tokyo)
Abstract:
Dark matter halos play a crucial role in the formation and evolution of galaxies but observational constraints on the distribution of dark matter are currently very poor.
Gravitational lensing is a very powerful tool for measuring galaxy masses at cosmological distances and provides a unique opportunity for probing the distribution of dark matter in the most massive galaxies. By statistically combining the lensing signal from a large set of galaxies we explored how the average dark matter distribution correlates with the properties of the baryonic component.
Strong lensing constraints reveal an anti-correlation between galaxy size and dark matter mass enclosed within 5kpc. At larger scales, probed by weak lensing, we observe a positive correlation between halo mass and the velocity dispersion of the central galaxy, at fixed stellar mass. These results could have a significant impact on our understanding of the formation and evolution of massive galaxies.