PROJECTED CENTRAL DARK MATTER FRACTIONS AND DENSITIES IN MASSIVE EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

Abstract

We investigate in massive early-type galaxies the variation of their two-dimensional central fraction of dark over total mass and dark matter density as a function of stellar mass, central stellar velocity dispersion, effective radius, and central surface stellar mass density. We use a sample of approximately 1.7 × 105 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Seven (SDSS DR7) at redshift smaller than 0.33. We apply conservative photometric and spectroscopic cuts on the SDSS DR7 and the MPA/JHU value-added galaxy catalogs, to select galaxies with physical properties similar to those of the lenses studied in the Sloan Lens ACS Survey. The values of the galaxy stellar and total mass projected inside a cylinder of radius equal to the effective radius are obtained, respectively, by fitting the SDSS multicolor photometry with stellar population synthesis models, under the assumption of a Chabrier stellar initial mass function (IMF), and adopting a one-component isothermal total mass model with effective velocity dispersion approximated by the central stellar velocity dispersion. The plausibility of an isothermal model to represent the galaxy total mass distribution is supported by independent gravitational lensing and stellar-dynamical analyses performed in the lens subsample, which is found here to represent nicely the entire galaxy sample. We find that within the effective radius the stellar mass estimates differ from the total ones by only a relatively constant proportionality factor. In detail, we observe that the values of the projected fraction of dark over total mass and the logarithmic values of the central surface dark matter density (measured in M☉ kpc−2) have almost Gaussian probability distribution functions, with median values of 0.64+0.08−0.11 and 9.1+0.2−0.2, respectively. We discuss the observed correlations between these quantities and other galaxy global parameters and show that our results disfavor an interpretation of the tilt of the fundamental plane in terms of differences in the galaxy dark matter content and give useful information on the possible variations of the galaxy stellar IMF and dark matter density profile. Finally, we provide some observational evidence on the likely significant contribution of dry minor mergers, feedback from active galactic nuclei, and/or coalescence of binary black holes on the formation and evolution of massive early-type galaxies.