The Radial Acceleration Relation in Disk Galaxies in the MassiveBlack-II Simulation

Understand

A strong correlation has been measured between the observed centripetal accelerations in galaxies and the accelerations implied by the baryonic components of galaxies.

• This empirical radial acceleration relation must be accounted for in any viable model of galaxy formation.
• We measure and compare the radial accelerations contributed by baryons and by dark matter in disk galaxies in the MassiveBlack-II hydrodynamic galaxy formation simulation.
• The sample of 1594 galaxies spans three orders of magnitude in luminosity and four in surface brightness, comparable to the observed sample from the Spitzer Photometry & Accurate Rotation Curves (SPARC) dataset used by McGaugh et al.