The Structure of Dark Matter Halos in Dwarf Galaxies

Some dwarf galaxies have HI rotation curves that are completely dominated by a surrounding dark matter (DM) halo (e.g. Carignan & Freeman 1988). These objects represent ideal candidates for an investigation of the density structure of low-mass DM halos as the uncertainties resulting from the subtraction of the visible component are small, even in the innermost regions. Flores & Primack (1994) and Moore (1994) compared the observed DM rotation curves with the profiles, predicted from cosmological cold dark matter (CDM) calculations. They found an interesting discrepancy: whereas the calculations lead to a DM density distribution which diverges as ρ ∼ r−1 in the inner parts, the observed rotation curves indicate shallow DM cores which can be described by an isothermal density profile with finite central density.