MODERN ESTIMATES OF THE MASS OF THE MILKY WAY

Abstract

An overview of various methods used to estimate the mass of the Galaxy is given. The results obtained on the basis of the analysis of the galactic rotation curve, on the kinematics of dwarf satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, on globular clusters, on the streams of dwarf galaxies, on distant halo stars, on escape velocities, on the dynamics of the Local group of galaxies, as well as results of N-body modeling are included. Estimates of the mass of the Galaxy \(M\) of the form (i) \(M( r)\), i.e. the mass enclosed inside a sphere with a radius of \(r\), (ii) \({{M}_{{200}}}\), where r 0 kpc, and (iii) virial estimates, \({{M}_{{{\text{vir}}}}}\). Such estimates were selected by us based on literary data,a significant part of which was obtained in the Gaia era. According to 20 individual estimates, the average value was found \({{\bar {M}}_{{200}}} = 0.88 \times {{10}^{{12}}} {{M}_{ \odot }}\) with a variance of \(0.24 \times {{10}^{{12}}} {{M}_{ \odot }}\) and a weighted average error of \(0.06 \times {{10}^{{12}}} {{M}_{ \odot }}\). According to 28 individual estimates we obtained \({{\bar {M}}_{{{\text{vir}}}}} = 1.05 \times {{10}^{{12}}} {{M}_{ \odot }}\) with variance \(0.44 \times {{10}^{{12}}} {{M}_{ \odot }}\) and a weighted average error of \(0.09 \times {{10}^{{12}}} {{M}_{ \odot }}\).