Single Parameter Model for Galaxy Rotation Curves
Name
galaxies-14-00012-v2.pdf
Size
1.68 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5a21c35c1c14ef09582eee30776a2862
Author(s)
Cisneros, Sophia N.
Ott, Rich
Crowley, Meagan
Roberts, Amy
Paz, Marcus
Date Issued
February 15, 2026
Journal
Galaxies
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Citation
Cisneros, Sophia N., Rich Ott, Meagan Crowley, Amy Roberts, and Marcus Paz. 2026. "Single Parameter Model for Galaxy Rotation Curves" Galaxies 14, no. 1: 12.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
One key piece of evidence for dark matter is the rotation-curve problem: the disagreement between measured galactic rotation curves and their luminous mass. A novel solution to this problem is presented here, in a model that predicts observed Doppler-shifted spectra based only on the luminous matter estimates and one free model parameter 𝛼. This model is applied to fit the rotation curves of the SPARC sample of 175 galaxies, yielding mass-to-light ratios, goodness of fit measurements, and 𝛼. The measured average 𝜒2
𝑟 =2.24 compares favorably with the Navarro-Frenk-White dark matter model’s average of 𝜒2
𝑟 =4.19 for the same data, and more galaxies are successfully fit by this model. The model provides a useful formulation linking luminous matter to the observed rotation curves, with the dark matter contribution to galaxies encoded in two transformation terms of the luminous mass. It also offers a lower-parameter characterization of the rotation curve problem, and a power law relationship between 𝛼 and galactic photometric quantities is observed, potentially removing the need for the free parameter.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3390/galaxies14010012
