Schematic representation of rotating disc galaxies in the early Universe (right) and the present day (left). Observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope suggest that such massive star-forming disc galaxies in the early Universe were less influenced by dark matter (shown in red), as it was less concentrated. As a result the outer parts of distant galaxies rotate more slowly than comparable regions of galaxies in the local Universe. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
Observations of distant galaxies suggest they were dominated by normal matter. The presence of dark matter can explain why the outer parts of nearby spiral galaxies rotate more quickly than would be expected if only the normal matter that we can see directly were present. Now, an international team of astronomers have used KMOS and SINFONI instruments at ESO’s VLT to measure the rotation of 6 massive, star-forming galaxies in the distant Universe, at the peak of galaxy formation 10 billion years ago. What they found was intriguing: unlike spiral galaxies in the modern Universe, the outer regions of these distant galaxies seem to be rotating more slowly than regions closer to the core – suggesting there is less dark matter present than expected.
“Surprisingly, the rotation velocities are not constant, but decrease further out in the galaxies,” comments Reinhard Genzel. “There are probably 2 causes for this. Firstly, most of these early massive galaxies are strongly dominated by normal matter, with dark matter playing a much smaller role than in the Local Universe. Secondly, these early discs were much more turbulent than the spiral galaxies we see in our cosmic neighbourhood.”
Both effects seem to become more marked as astronomers look further and further back in time, into the early Universe. This suggests that 3 to 4 billion years after the Big Bang, the gas in galaxies had already efficiently condensed into flat, rotating discs, while the dark matter halos surrounding them were much larger and more spread out. Apparently it took billions of years longer for dark matter to condense as well, so its dominating effect is only seen on the rotation velocities of galaxy discs today.
This explanation is consistent with observations showing that early galaxies were much more gas-rich and compact than today’s galaxies.In addition to the individual galaxy measurements described , an average rotation curve was created by combining the weaker signals from the other galaxies. This composite curve also showed the same decreasing velocity trend away from the centres of the galaxies. In addition, two further studies of 240 star forming discs also support these findings. Detailed modelling shows that while normal matter typically accounts for about half of the total mass of all galaxies on average, it completely dominates the dynamics of galaxies at the highest redshifts. http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1709/
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