Maximal Disks and the Tully-Fisher Relation

Abstract

We show that for luminous, non-barred, high-surface brightness (HSB) spirals the Tully-Fisher (TF) relation residuals can be used to estimate the relative mass contributions of the stellar disk and the dark halo at the peak of the disk rotation, near 2.2 exponential scale lengths (Rh). For "maximal disks", a large fraction (0.85 +/- 0.10) of the total rotational support, V2.2, at such radii should arise from their stellar mass. We find that the disk size, or surface brightness, is not a significant additional parameter in the TF relation and the case of a maximal disk is ruled out for most HSB galaxies. We model adiabatic infall of varying amounts of luminous matter into dark matter halos and find that the TF relation residuals require a mean value of V2.2/Vtotal ~ 0.6 +/- 0.1, fairly insensitive to the details of the initial dark matter halo and to the presence of a bulge. This translates to Mhalo/Mtotal ~ 0.6 within 2.2*Rh, or roughly twice more dark matter in the inner parts of late-type spirals than previously accounted for by maximum disk fits. We show that any stellar population differences between disks of different scalelengths lead to lower values of V2.2/Vtotal. Our result is independent of the shape of the luminosity profile and relies only on the assumption of adiabatic contraction and that the dark matter halo rotation rises in the central parts of the galaxy. Sub-maximal disks establish a natural continuity between HSB and low-surface brightness (LSB) galaxies which appear to be completely dark matter dominated even in their inner regions. (Abridged)